Brooklyn – the first ship so-named by the U.S. Navy – was the first of five screw sloops of war authorized by the U.S. Congress on March 3, 1857; laid down later that year by the firm of Jacob A. Westervelt and Son; launched in 1858; and commissioned on January 26, 1859, Capt.

Following a week's visit to that port, she headed for the West Indies to investigate conditions in Haiti where liberal forces had ousted Emperor Soulouque and installed Fabre Geffrard as President.

Farragut found that the people of Haiti were delighted to be free of the oppressive rule of the former monarch and with the end of a racial war that had bled their nation.

However, in mid- January she reembarked McLane and took him to New Orleans so that he might catch a train for Washington, D.C., where he was needed to explain the treaty he had negotiated with Juárez to doubtful senators.

There, she received orders to prepare for a voyage carrying members of a scientific expedition to the Gulf of Mexico to find a route across the isthmus of Chiriqui.

Shortly thereafter, Brooklyn returned to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and she remained in the Norfolk area through the end of 1860 while enthusiasm for secession swept through the deep South in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency.

The following month, she received orders for a similar mission which she carried out with great success, relieving Fort Pickens, at Pensacola, Florida.

After helping to thwart Confederate attempts to wrest that highly valuable Federal toehold on strategic Florida territory from Union hands, Brooklyn sailed west along the Gulf of Mexico coast to establish the blockade of the Mississippi Passes.

On June 30, 1861, the Confederate warship CSS Sumter raced out of Pass a l'Outre while Brooklyn had left her station in pursuit of another ship.

Upon seeing the fleet Southern cruiser, Brooklyn forsook her first chase and used full sail and maximum steam in an attempt to overtake Sumter but to no avail, for her quarry soon escaped over the horizon and out of sight.

[2] Farragut's orders called for him to clear the Mississippi of all Confederate forces afloat and of all defensive works along the river banks while moving up stream until meeting another Union squadron—commanded by Flag Officer Charles Henry Davis – which had begun fighting its way downriver from Cairo, Illinois.

Hence, early in May after Union Army troops commanded by Major General Benjamin F. Butler had arrived in transports and had taken over New Orleans, Brooklyn and six other warships ascended the river.

Since the Union Army did not have a sufficient number of troops available in the region to accomplish this purpose, Farragut's men-of-war returned to New Orleans.

There awaiting him were orders from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles reiterating the importance of a junction with Davis's force above Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Shortly before dawn, Brooklyn dropped down stream to a place of greater safety and remained there to be on hand to support Farragut in any way possible should an opportunity to do so occur before the Flag Officer returned below in mid-July.

On August 6, the screw sloop engaged Confederate batteries at Donaldsonville, Louisiana, driving the Southern artillerymen from their guns; and, on the 9th and 10th, she took part in combined operations which partially destroyed that city in reprisal for guerrilla attacks on Union shipping from that town.

Soon thereafter, Brooklyn left the Mississippi and steamed to Pensacola for more permanent repairs to the damage she had suffered while fighting her way past Forts Jackson and St. Philip and colliding with Manassas.

This setback prompted Bell to give up his plan to retake that port pending the arrival of powerful shallow draft reinforcements.

At Point Isabel, they captured the 100-ton, British sloop Victoria of Jamaica but ran that vessel aground while attempting to get out to sea and so burned her.

There Farragut—who had resumed command—was eager to capture that strategic port, but was held up by the perennial lack of available Union Army troops—needed for the projected combined operation.

The four monitors formed a column to starboard of the wooden ships in order to take most of the fire from Fort Morgan, which they had to pass at close range.

After spending the next few weeks helping reduce the Confederate land works guarding the entrance, Brooklyn departed Mobile Bay on September 6 and headed for Hampton Roads for service in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

Soon thereafter, Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter began to concentrate his warships for a joint Army-Navy operation against Fort Fisher, North Carolina.

General Ulysses S. Grant responded by placing a new commander over a larger Army force earmarked for another attempt to take Fort Fisher.

Following almost two years of service along the Atlantic coast of South America, she returned to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, late in the summer of 1867 and was decommissioned there on September 11 and placed in ordinary.

John Guest in command, Brooklyn sailed eastward across the Atlantic and spent almost three years in European waters, primarily in the Mediterranean.

Reactivated on January 20, 1874, the veteran warship operated along the southern coast of the United States until autumn when she entered the Norfolk Navy Yard to be fitted out for service as flagship of the South Atlantic Squadron.

While operating out of that port during the next 18 months, she made two voyages to Santa Cruz, Patagonia, and one to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before getting underway on September 28, 1883 for Cape Town, Africa.

After proceeding homeward via St. Helena Island, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro, she arrived at New York City on October 8, 1884 and was placed out of commission there on the 25th.

After crossing the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, she transited the Suez Canal and traversed the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to East Asian waters.