USS Nautilus was a 76-foot schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

 launched in 1838 for hydrographic surveying

Hydrography

Hydrography is the measurement of the depths, the tides and currents of a body of water and establishment of the sea, river or lake bed topography and morphology. Normally and historically for the purpose of charting a body of water for the safe navigation of shipping...

 of the coast of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. She was commissioned into the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 in 1847 for service in the Mexican–American War

Mexican–American War

The Mexican–American War, also known as the First American Intervention, the Mexican War, or the U.S.–Mexican War, was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S...

.

Coast and Geodetic Survey

The second Nautilus, the first ship designed for the Coast and Geodetic Survey, was completed in 1838. Until the spring of 1844 she carried out surveys for the Commerce Department in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic Coast, operating under Mr. F. R. Hossler (1838–1843) and Dr. A. D. Bache (1843–1844). In April 1844, although still a Coast and Geodetic Survey ship, she was put under the command of Lt. G. M. Bache, USN, to undertake surveys for the Navy.

Mexican–American War

Three years later, in 1847, she was taken over by the Navy for temporary duties during the Mexican–American War, as light draft vessels were needed for operations off the Gulf coast. Such vessels, with their ability to ride over the sandbars frequently found at the entrances to harbors on that coast, and to patrol between those harbors close to shore, facilitated combined operations and the Navy’s important duty of providing General Taylor

Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...

with a secure line of communications in the Gulf.

Nautilus was returned to the Coast and Geodetic Survey in July 1848 and performed survey duties for that agency until 1859.