 "Juliet" was built at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in 1862 and purchased by the Navy at Cincinnati, Ohio, 1 November 1862.After receiving armorplate protection, she commissioned 14 December, Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Edward Shaw in command.Assigned to the Mississippi Squadron and ordered to the vicinity of Vicksburg, Mississippi, "Juliet" helped clear the Yazoo River of torpedoes (mines) 23 December in preparation for General William Tecumseh Sherman's valiant but unsuccessful attack on the Chickasaw Bluffs, which protected Vicksburg.