Monticello was built at Mystic, Connecticut, in 1859; chartered by the Navy in May 1861; and purchased on 12 September 1861 at New York from H. P. Cromwell & Company, for service in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Captain Henry Eagle in command.

Departing Baltimore, Maryland on 25 March 1862 for the blockade of Wilmington, North Carolina, Monticello sent a boat party to the expedition up Little River on 26 June that destroyed two schooners.

Returning to the Wilmington blockade in January 1864, she joined in the expedition to Smithville, North Carolina (now the town of Southport) on 29 February, capturing Captain Patrick Kelly of General Louis Hebert's staff.

After the war, Monticello decommissioned on 24 July 1865 at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and was sold at public auction at Boston, Massachusetts to W. H. Lincoln on 1 November.

Later sold to the Metropolitan Steamship Company, she was redocumented for merchant service on 25 July 1866, she served American commerce until foundering off Newfoundland on 29 April 1872.