High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! USS Kansas (1863) was a gunboat constructed for the Union Navy during the middle of the American Civil War. She was outfitted with heavy guns and assigned to the Union blockade of the waterways of the Confederate States of America. She was the first U.S. Navy ship to be named Kansas and was the first of a class of 836-ton screw steam gunboats, At war’s end, she continued serving her country by performing survey work and defending American interests in Cuba until sold in 1883.