Yorktown was involved in the 1891 Baltimore Crisis in Chile, participated in the China Relief Expedition carried out in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, and served as a convoy escort in World War I. Concord was a part of Admiral George Dewey's fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War.

The Yorktown-class gunboats – unofficially considered third-class cruisers – were the product of a United States Navy design attempt to produce compact ships with good seakeeping abilities and, yet, able to carry a heavy battery.

[1] Contemporary news reports indicate the class was loosely based on HMS Archer, the first ship of the Royal Navy's Archer-class torpedo cruisers.

[3] The construction contract for Yorktown was awarded to the William Cramp & Sons shipyard of Philadelphia and her keel was laid down in May 1887.

The contract for the other pair was awarded to N. F. Palmer & Co., who sublet the construction of the hulls to the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding & Engine Works, also of Philadelphia.

The steel hulls had an average draft of 14 feet (4 m),[1] which was expected to give them the ability to escape from larger ships into shallow water.

It was outfitted with a steam-powered steering wheel, a telegraph, and speaking tubes; it was protected by 2 inches (51 mm) of steel armor plate.

[2] According to a 1902 Bureau of Ordnance publication, an armor-piercing round fired from a 6-pounder gun could penetrate 2 inches (51 mm) of armor at a distance of 1,000 yards (910 m).

[8] Bennington had the shortest Navy career: she suffered a boiler explosion in July 1905 at San Diego, California, that killed over 60 crewmen.

After that situation was resolved, Yorktown took part in the joint British–American sealing patrol in Alaskan waters and served as a station ship before returning to the United States in 1898.

[4] After three years out of commission from 1903 to 1906, Yorktown hosted Secretary of the Navy Victor H. Metcalf on board when he greeted the Great White Fleet on its arrival in San Francisco in May 1907.

From July 1912, Yorktown was out of commission for alterations, but resumed duties off the Mexican, Nicaraguan, and Honduran coasts beginning in April 1913.

After arrival at San Diego in February, she was decommissioned for the final time in June 1919; she was sold in 1921 to an Oakland firm and broken up that same year.

After her 1891 commissioning, Concord spent the next few years sailing along the East Coast of the United States, in the West Indies, and in the Gulf of Mexico.

[8] Bennington was awarded to N. F. Palmer & Co. of Chester, Pennsylvania in November 1887, but her hull was subcontracted to the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding & Engine Works which laid down her keel in June 1888.

She sailed the Pacific coasts of North and Central America and spent time in the Hawaiian Islands protecting American interests there.

[10] On 21 July 1905 at San Diego, California, Bennington suffered a boiler explosion that killed 66 men and injured nearly everyone else on board.