In all, the American financier J. Pierpont Morgan owned four successive steam yachts named Corsair, the second of which, and the one which achieved the most publicised war career, was designed by J. Beavor-Webb and built by Neafie & Levy in 1890. Constructed of steel and rigged as a screw steamer, she was registered at 560 tons gross and measured 241 feet in length with a 27 foot beam. Powered by a triple expansion engine fired from two Scotch boilers, her single screw gave her a top speed of 17 knots and she proved a highly successful acquisition for her owner. Morgan treated her like another of his homes and once he was elected Commodore of the New York Yacht Club in 1897, he used her even more frequently than before.

In April 1898, Morgan sold Corsair (II) to the U.S. Navy and she was converted into the dispatch vessel and patrol gunboat U.S.S. Gloucester. Ordered to the Caribbean where the Spanish-American War had just begun, she served with great distinction during the attacks on the harbours at Santiago de Cuba and Guanica (Puerto Rico), and returned home with an enviable record. Apart from a brief spell as a training ship with the New York Naval Militia, she remained in service with the U.S. Navy until they sold her in 1919, shortly after which she was wrecked in a Florida hurricane.