USS A. Houghton – a 326 ton bark – was purchased during the beginning of the American Civil War by the Union Navy. A. Houghton served throughout the war against the Confederate States of America as an ammunition ship, supporting the Union fleet. Towards the end of the war, she served as a storeship and as a health ship whose task it was to restore post-operative wounded personnel back to health. Built in Maine in 1852 A. Houghton – a bark built in 1852 by James P. Rideout at Robbinston, Maine – was purchased by the Navy on 12 October 1861 at New York City and – after being fitted out at the New York Navy Yard – was placed in commission on 19 February 1862. Civil War service Assigned to the West Gulf blockade Nine days before, on 10 February, the bark was slated for duty in the Mortar Flotilla of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. That bombardment group, led by Commander David Dixon Porter, was being established to provide covering fire for Flag Officer David Farragut during his forthcoming campaign against New Orleans, Louisiana. Soon after being commissioned, the bark departed New York harbor and proceeded via Key West, Florida, and Ship Island, Mississippi, to the Mississippi Delta where she waited while Farragut and his squadron were laboring to get his deep-draft, oceangoing warships across the bar and into the river. In mid-April, after this difficult task had been completed, she accompanied Porter's mortar schooners upstream to a point a short distance below Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which guarded the river, approaches to New Orleans, Louisiana, from the sea. There, she supplied Porter's guns with ammunition as they shelled the Confederate works during the days preceding the bold dash of Farragut's steam-propelled men-of-war past the guns of the forts to capture New Orleans. New Orleans falls to Union forces After the great Southern metropolis fell, A. Houghton retired with the Flotilla to the Gulf of Mexico to await Farragut and join him in a planned attack on Mobile, Alabama. However, orders from Washington, D.C. directed Farragut to ascend the Mississippi River past the Confederate river fortress at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and join forces with Flag Officer Charles Henry Davis who had been fighting his way down the Mississippi River from its confluence with the Ohio River. Supporting the attack on Vicksburg Knowing the strength of the South's position