USS Grand Gulf (1863)  USS "Grand Gulf" (1863) was a wooden-hulled, propeller-driven steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was effective in performing blockade duty, and captured a number of Confederate blockade runners. Cornelius and Richard Poillon built "Onward" at their shipyard at the foot of Bridge Street in Brooklyn, New York. She was launched into the East River on March 28, 1863. She was purchased by the US Navy from the Poillons on 14 September 1863 for $190,000. She was commissioned as "USS Grand Gulf" on 28 September 1863, Comdr. George Ransom in command. "Grand Gulf" stood to sea from New York on 11 October and 9 days later joined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Wilmington, North Carolina. Her two exits to the sea at Beaufort and the Cape Fear River made Wilmington one of the most important and most difficult to blockade of all Confederate ports. She remained on blockade duty there, with intervals for repair at the New York and Norfolk Navy Yards, until 4 October 1864. On 21 November 1863, assisted by Army Transport "Fulton", "Grand Gulf" took blockade runner "Banshee" with a general cargo of contraband from Nassau. Off the Carolina coast, "Grand Gulf", 6 March 1864, captured the British steamer "Mary Ann" trying to run the blockade with a cargo of cotton and tobacco; seizing the cargo and 82 passengers and crew members, "Grand Gulf" put a prize crew on the steamer and sent her to Boston, Massachusetts. A second British ship, "Young Republic", fell captive to "Grand Gulf" after a wild chase 6 May 1864, with both ships steaming at full speed and the blockade runner throwing overboard bale after bale of precious cotton and even the anchor chain in a futile attempt to lighten ship. "Grand Gulf" garnered some 253 bales of cotton as well as 54 prisoners from this prize. Two weeks later, Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee wrote Ransom congratulating him on taking the prize; "Every capture made by blockaders deprives the enemy of so much of the 'sinews of war,' and is equal to the taking of two supply trains from the rebel Army." Returning to New York 4 August 1864, she was ordered out in search of the Confederate raider CSS Tallahassee, reported in Long Island Sound. However, 17 August she gave over the search to tow into port demasted brig "Billow", and claim her as a prize.