USS Malvern (1860)

Rear Admiral Porter on the deck of Malvern

Ella and Annie was condemned as a prize of war and sold to the navy. Hastily armed, renamed Malvern and provisionally commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard 10 December, she was sent to intercept Chesapeake, which had been hijacked at sea by passengers professing allegiance to the Confederacy. Chesapeake was found abandoned, taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and turned over to British authorities.

Malvern was formally commissioned 9 February 1864 at Boston Navy Yard. Assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, she became Admiral David Dixon Porter's flagship. She participated in the campaign that resulted in the capture of Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in December 1864 and January 1865. She captured blockade running steamers Stag and Charlotte 19 January off New Inlet, North Carolina, and participated in the attack 18 February on Fort Anderson, Cape Fear River.

Malvern was frequently utilized for conferences between Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, Rear Admiral Porter, and U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Her last notable service for the Navy was to convey the President up the James River to Richmond, Virginia, when that city was evacuated by the Confederates on 2 April. A contingent of armed guards from the Malvern protected the President during his visit to the captured Confederate capital city, now under U.S. control, where Lincoln was greeted amicably by former slaves, who hailed him as a hero and credited for their liberation. Even some Richmonders greeted Lincoln amicably as well, with one Virginian girl giving him a bouquet of flowers for his role in ending slavery.[1][2]

After Lincoln's visit to Richmond on 4 April, Democratic politician and Confederate supporter Duff Green boarded Malvern, demanding to naval personnel that they take him to speak to President Lincoln, which was done.[2] Calling Green a friend, Lincoln greeted him amicably with a smile at first, however, Green did not reciprocate in kind, refusing to shake Lincoln's hand when it was offered.[2] In full view of Rear Admiral Porter, Green then proceeded to verbally berate Lincoln, calling him a tyrant, a murderer, accusing him of visiting Virginia only to gloat boastfully over the defeated Confederacy, as well as accusing him of starting the Civil War.[2] After patiently listening to Green berate him for a while, Lincoln's smile soon disappeared and he became incensed, angrily condemning Green as being a traitor to the United States for supporting its wartime enemy, the Confederacy:

Stop, you political tramp. You, the aider and abettor of those who have brought all this ruin upon your country, without the courage to risk your person in defense of the principles you profess to espouse! A fellow who stood by to gather up the loaves and fishes, if any should fall to you! A man who had no principles in the North, and took none South with him! A political hyena who robbed the graves of the dead, and adopted their language as his own! You talk of the North cutting the throats of the Southern people. You have all cut your own throats, and, unfortunately, have cut many of those of the North. Miserable impostor, vile intruder! Go, before I forget myself and the high position I hold! Go, I tell you, and don't desecrate this national vessel another minute![2]

Green, surprised and left speechless by Lincoln's rare bout of anger, quickly exited the room.[2] Porter then ordered military personnel to remove Green from Malvern and not to allow him to board the ship again.[2]

Malvern decommissioned 24 October 1865 at New York City.