USS Linden (1860)

USS Tuscumbia (1863-1865) Tied up with other ships, on the Western Rivers, circa 1863. USS Linden (1863-1864, "Tinclad" # 10) is moored outboard of the Tuscumbia.
History
United States
Laid down:	date unknown
Launched:	1860
Acquired:	20 November 1862
Commissioned:	3 January 1863
Struck:	1864 (est.)
Fate:	sank, 22 February 1864
General characteristics
Displacement:	177 tons
Length:	154 ft (47 m)
Beam:	31 ft (9.4 m)
Draught:	4 ft (1.2 m)
Propulsion:	steam engine side wheel-propelled
Speed:	not known
Complement:	not known
Armament:	six 24-pounder howitzers

USS Linden (1860) was a steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Navy to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy to prevent the South from trading with other countries.

Linden, a wooden sidewheel steamer, was built in 1860 at Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania; purchased by the Navy at Cincinnati, Ohio, 20 November 1862; and commissioned at Cairo, Illinois, 3 January 1863, acting Master Thomas E. Smith in command.

Linden departed Cairo 9 January escorting charter steamer Home and five coal barges to Memphis, Tennessee. After convoy duty up and down the Mississippi River, Linden was ordered to cooperate with General Ulysses S. Grant in cutting a canal between the Red and Black Rivers through Tensas Bayou. The project was pressed vigorously but as Porter later noted

Throughout the winter and spring of 1863, Linden continued to support operations against the Confederate river stronghold at Vicksburg. She remained above the fortress when Admiral David Dixon Porter and his gunboats dashed under Vickburg’s guns to support Grant’s campaign from below. On 29 April with seven other Union Navy ships, three mortar boats and 10 large Army transports, Linden began a feigned attack on the Confederate batteries at Haynes Bluff on the Yazoo River above Vicksburg. The movement was designed to prevent southern reinforcement of Grand Gulf where Grant was about to land his troops after crossing the Mississippi River.

That day the expedition proceeded as far as Chickasaw Bayou. On the 30th the task force moved up the Yazoo River, and landed troops who marched up “...the levee, making quite a display, and a threatening one also.” Naval gunfire supported the demonstration until Grant had safely ferried his men across the river and landed at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. Then the diversionary troops withdrew from Haynes Bluff, reembarked, and the expedition returned to the mouth of the Yazoo River.