Nightingale was designed and built at the Hanscom Shipyard in Eliot, Maine in 1851[2] by Samuel Hanscomb, Jr., receiving final fitting out in nearby Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Nightingale was defeated, and her commander, chagrined at the result, and being somewhat in years, resigned, leaving the ship in London Docks, in charge of the chief officer, and took a Cunarder home.

The owners of Nightingale, Messrs. Sampson and Tappan, Boston, made light of the pecuniary loss, but greatly deplored the lowering of the flag, and immediately arranged another race, for similar stakes, between the same vessels, over the same course.

The international maritime competition, now pursued in sport, was then conducted in sober earnest by the largest, fastest merchantmen, along business lines, for nautical supremacy for commercial advantages.

[4]In the spring of 1853 Nightingale, still commanded by Captain Mather, because of her speed and general record was chartered by the Australian Pioneer Line, R. W. Cameron and Co., to carry mails, passengers, and freights to Melbourne, with the understanding that she was to proceed from there to China ports, where she would load with tea and silk for London.

"[6]This * is the Portuguese colony of São Tomé About midnight on 20–21 April 1861, two boats from sloop of war USS Saratoga pulled silently toward a darkened ship anchored near the mouth of the Congo River at Cabinda, Angola.

After clambering aboard Nightingale, a suspected slaver from Boston, Massachusetts, the American sailors and marines found 961 men, women, and children chained between decks.

Nightingale was condemned by the New York prize court; purchased by the US Navy which was then expanding to blockade the Confederate coast, and commissioned on 18 August 1861, Brevet Master David B. Horne in command.

Fitted out as a collier and store ship, Nightingale got underway south laden with coal the same day, stopped at Hampton Roads on the 21st, and pushed on toward Key West, Florida the following morning.

[7]The Nightingale, a fine, large clipper ship belonging to the expedition, had brought up on her decks from San Francisco two small flat-bottomed steamers, one intended for the navigation of the Yukon River in Russian America, and the other for the Anadyr.