The first Arkansas -- a wooden-hulled, barkentine-rigged, screw steamer built at Philadelphia in 1863 as the Tonawanda -- was purchased by the Navy at Philadelphia on 27 June 1863 from Messers. S. & J. M. Flanagan; and commissioned in the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 29 June 1863, Acting Volunteer Lieutenant William H. West in command.

Renamed the Arkansas and assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, the new steamer reported for duty on 10 October 1863 to Commodore Henry H. Bell who had temporary command of the squadron while Rear Admiral David G. Farragut was home on leave. She was given the task of maintaining communications with and carrying supplies to the Union warships which were stationed on blockade duty along the coast of Texas. Throughout her naval career she alternated with Augusta Dinsmore on logistic cruises which took them as far south as Brownsville, Texas.

On 27 September 1864, while steaming in the gulf on one of these supply runs, Arkansas -- then commanded by Acting Volunteer Lieutenant David Cate -- encountered the schooner Watchful purportedly sailing from New York to Matamoras, Mexico, with a cargo of lumber and petroleum. Her master claimed that his ship had begun leaking; and he, therefore, had changed course to New Orleans to seek repairs. However, when Cate examined the schooner's cargo, he found crates of arms hidden under the lumber and consequently seized the vessel which he sent to New Orleans under a prize crew for adjudication.

After the collapse of the Confederacy, Arkansas departed New Orleans on 5 June 1865 and sailed north to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, She was decommissioned in the navy yard there on 30 June 1865 and was sold at public auction on 20 July 1865 to Mr. George S. Leach of Portsmouth. Re-documented as Tonawanda on 1 August 1865, the steamer served as a coastal merchantman until she was reported stranded on Grecian Shoals, Florida, on 28 March 1866 and was lost. The area now known as Grecian Shoals is several miles from where the wreck lies in 20 feet of water on the Elbow Reef. The discrepancy is probably due to changes in charts in the ensuing years.

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