David, Yes you're correct either Hannah or Mr. Seymour was telling me about that monitor on the west coast in California during the war. As I recall the conversation with that particular monitor it was assembled on the west coast but not constructed there. How they got it to California is probably another interesting story.

There was some type of coup going on in Japan during 1863 and 1864 and several counties England, France Holland and one or two ships from the United States entered the fight to help open up the nearby shipping lanes. I believe one ship was the USS Wyoming and according to Wikipedia it sank two Japanese vessels. If I remember right five United States sailors were killed or died of their wounds.

After the war the United States sold some of their monitors to counties in South America and probably elsewhere and the first monitor to sail around the tip of South America occurred in 1866 from what I had been told.

The CSS Stonewall Jackson was sold to the Japanese after our war and renamed with a Japanese name.