A Chinese friend told me that during the Civil War, three Chinese warships fought for the Union Navy?

Question

is this true?

Answer 1

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarti...

Answer 2

he meant to say three chinese cooks served tea on nice teacups on ships.

Answer 3

The answer to your question is yes.

It is a bit complicated though.

China was involved in their own civil war when the American civil war started. The Chinese govt wanted a navy so they tried to buy some gunboats from the USA.

The boats were paid for and built but the American negotiating the deal with the Chinese was killed in one of the battles in China.

The result was that the three American built gunboats called  Dai Ching, Chi Kiang and Kiang Soo were sold to the Union navy.

China never got the money back either.

So yes there were Chinese warships, but they were not from China.

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There was also an odd attempt by the Confederate Navy to buy gunboats from the British. The British would not sell them to the Confederate Navy so the Southern states tried ordering them through China with the intent of getting them for themselves.

I think the British intercepted those ones from the Chinese and kept them in a harbour in India until both the Chinese and American Civil Wars were over. The Confederates never received them anyhow.

Nice question.

Answer 4

I have seen no record of any Chinese ships, which would have been low-technology ships to say the least, that fought in the Civil War. Union ships were either homemade or converted merchant ships with the occasional captured Confederate ship thrown in. Some Confederate ships were made in Britain.  At the time, the US government had yet to even develop a close relationship with China.