USS Camanche, a 1335-ton Passaic class monitor, was prefabricated at Jersey City, New Jersey. Her materials were then sent around Cape Horn in the sailing ship Aquila to San Francisco, California, where Aquila sank in November 1863. The monitor's parts were salvaged and assembled at San Francisco and she went into commission in May 1865, just after the end of the Civil War. For more than a year, until the arrival of the larger twin-turret monitor Monadnock, Camanche was the Navy's only ironclad warship on the Pacific coast, and she was one of but two stationed there for nearly two and a half decades.

Camanche's career was a quiet one, with the ship generally maintained in decommissioned status at the Mare Island Navy Yard, in northern San Francisco Bay. She was the California Naval Militia's training ship in 1896-97 and appears to have been reactivated in 1898, during the Spanish-American War. USS Camanche was sold in 1899, but photographic evidence indicates that she remained in the San Francisco area for a few years after that.

This page features all our views related to USS Camanche.

Photo #: NH 68679 USS Camanche (1865-1899) Moored off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, in 1889. The city of Vallejo is in the background. Photograph from the William H. Topley Collection. Courtesy of Charles M. Loring, 1969.
Photo #: NH 55251 USS Camanche (1865-1899) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, in 1898. Copied from the Journal of Naval Cadet Cyrus R. Miller, page 923.
Photo #: NH 68512 USS Camanche (1865-1899) In drydock at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, possibly in about 1898. Courtesy of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, 1969.
Photo #: NH 44267 Passaic class monitor Photographed after the Civil War. This may be USS Camanche, moored off Vallejo, California, circa the 1880s or 1890s.
Photo #: NH 55198 USS Camanche (1865-1899) Nearly ready for launching, at San Francisco, California, circa 14 November 1864.

The following photographs show USS Camanche in the background of pictures of other ships:

Photo #: NH 71244 Self-Propelled Derrick Barge Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa 1890. The monitor USS Camanche is in the right background. Photograph from the William H. Topley Collection. Courtesy of Charles M. Loring, 1970.
Photo #: NH 71766 USS Monadnock (Monitor # 3) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, prior to her June 1898 departure for the Philippines. The monitor USS Camanche is partially visible in the right background. Courtesy of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, 1970.
Photo #: NH 70502 USS Monadnock (Monitor # 3) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, in June 1898, ready for her voyage to the Philippines. The old monitor USS Camanche is visible beyond Monadnock's after gun turret. Courtesy of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, 1970.
Photo #: NH 57139 Albatross (U.S. Fish Commission Steamer, 1882) In San Francisco Bay, California, with a steam launch alongside, February 1902. The old monitor Camanche, which had been sold by the Navy in 1899, is in the right background.

In addition to the images presented above, the Mariners Museum, at Newport News, Virginia, appears to hold other views of USS Camanche, taken during her assembly at San Francisco, California. The following list features these images:

The images listed below are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".