Congress was launched by the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 17 July 1868, sponsored by Miss P. Drake, daughter of Senator Charles D. Drake of Missouri; and commissioned on 4 March 1870, Captain N. Harrison in command. The ship was variously known as Pushmataha, and Cambridge prior to 10 August 1869 when she was renamed Congress, the name under which she performed all her service. Congress was decommissioned on 26 July 1876, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and laid up in ordinary until 20 September 1883, when she was sold.