On 23 June 1874 President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Navy George Robeson, in response to the Virginius Incident, ordered the USS Puritan of the American Civil War laid down (scrapped, redesigned, and rebuilt).

After a stop at Key West in early May, she departed on the 20th to join the force building under Rear Admiral William T. Sampson that would eventually move against Santiago.

Puritan linked up on the 22nd and Sampson moved his ships to Key Frances on the Nicholas Channel in order to execute his plan to contain the Spanish Fleet at Santiago.

In March 1910, it was proposed by a commodore that the monitors in service with the U.S. Navy, including Puritan, Miantonomoh, Terror and Amphitrite, be used as forts near Key West in order to make it into "an American Gibraltar."

[1] She was struck from the Navy List 27 February 1918 and, with the submarine USS Plunger (SS-2) on board, was one of several vessels sold on 26 January 1922, to J. G. Hitner and W. F. Cutler of Philadelphia.