USS Tulip (1862)
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
|
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| Laid down: | 1862 |
| Launched: | 1863 |
| Acquired: | 22 June 1863 |
| Commissioned: | 1863 |
| Fate: | Exploded and sank 11 November 1864 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 183 tons |
| Length: | 97 ft 3 in (29.64 m) |
| Beam: | 21 ft 9 in (6.63 m) |
| Draft: | 8 ft (2.4 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 9 ft 6 in (2.90 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | not known |
| Complement: | 57 |
| Armament: |
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USS Tulip (1862) was a 183-ton steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
Tulip was outfitted with heavy guns and was used by the Navy as a gunboat to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy in order to prevent the South from trading with other countries.
Tulip—a wooden-hulled, steam lighthouse tender built at New York City in 1862 and 1863 as Chih Kiang by Jowett & Company for the Chinese Navy—was purchased by the Navy on 22 June 1863 at New York.
Renamed Tulip and refitted for service as a tugboat and gunboat, the screw steamer joined the Potomac River Flotilla in August 1863. That force patrolled the river protecting Union waterborne communications between the nation's capital and the port cities of the divided nation during the Civil War.
She initially performed towing duties at the Washington Navy Yard, and then served with the flotilla in operations against Confederate forces in the Rappahannock River.
In the latter duties, the ship carried Federal troops and supported naval landing parties which from time to time went ashore for operations against Confederate traffic across the river.
As she continued this wartime riverine service into 1864, Tulip developed a defective starboard boiler. Commander Foxhall A. Parker, Jr., commanding the Potomac Flotilla, ordered the ship home to the Washington Navy Yard so that repairs could be made to correct her defective propulsion plant.
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Wikipedia