.jpg) Bienville in merchant service
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
.svg){kind=small}  United States | |
| Name | USS Bienville |
| Namesake | Jean Baptiste de Bienville |
| Builder | Lawrence & Foulks (Williamsburg, NY |
| Launched | 1860 |
| Acquired | August 14, 1861 |
| Commissioned | October 23, 1861 |
| Decommissioned | Soon after war's end |
| Stricken | 1867 (est.) |
| Fate | Destroyed by fire, Watling Island, Bahamas, 15 August 1872 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Sidewheel steamship |
| Displacement | 1,558 long tons (1,583 t) |
| Length | 253 ft (77 m) |
| Beam | 38 ft (12 m) |
| Draft | 16 ft 2 in (4.93 m) |
| Installed power | Walking beam |
| Propulsion | Sidewheels; auxiliary sails |
| Speed | 15 kn (28 km/h) |
| Complement | 185 |
| Armament | 1 × 30-pounder rifle, 8 × 32-pounder smoothbore guns |
USS Bienville was a 1,558 long tons (1,583 t) (burden) wooden side-wheel paddle steamer acquired by the Union Navy early in the American Civil War. She was armed with heavy guns and assigned to the Union blockade of the waterways of the Confederate States of America.