Ta-Kiang (sometimes spelled Takiang and meaning "big river" in Chinese) -- an oak-hulled, screw steamer built in 1862 at New York City by the shipbuilding firm of Rosevelt and Joyce—was active in the China trade, probably under the British flag to avoid being molested by Confederate raiders and cruisers.

In the summer of 1864, the British government chartered the ship to bring troops to Kanagawa, Japan, because of the anti-foreign sentiment then prevalent among certain segments of the Japanese population who were resisting westernization.

As an outgrowth of this hostility to aliens in the summer of 1863, a Prince of Nagato, Mori, of the clan of Choshiu, fortified one side of the Strait of Shimonoseki to close that waterway to western commerce.

However, the only American warship then in that part of the world was the sail-powered sloop-of-war Jamestown, which could not overcome the strong currents in the strait and thus was unable to participate in any allied expedition to open navigation to foreign shipping.

Before the joint expedition set sail, a mail steamer arrived bringing Japanese diplomats back from France with a treaty that had stipulated, among other provisions, that the Strait of Shimonoseki would be opened within three months.

On the next day, 29 August, Ta-Kiang departed Yokohama in company with the Dutch steam sloop Djambe and arrived at the rendezvous point, Hime Shima, on the evening of 1 September.