USS Verbena

USS Verbena was a small 104-ton steamer purchased by the Union Navy towards the end of the American Civil War.

Verbena, outfitted with a 20-pounder Parrott rifle by the Navy, was placed in service as a gunboat and assigned to the blockade of the Confederate States of America. However, most of her service was as a tugboat and as a ship’s tender.

Service history
Verbena was originally Ino, a small wooden screw tugboat of 81 register tons, built at Brooklyn, New York by Lawrence & Foulks in 1863. She was purchased by the Navy at New York City on 7 June 1864 and commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 11 July 1864.

On 19 July, the vessel was attached to the Potomac Flotilla for duty as a tugboat. Two days later, she deployed in the Potomac River off Point Lookout, Maryland.; and she served for most of the duration of the Civil War as a tender to the ironclad USS Roanoke (1855).

After the collapse of the Confederacy, Verbena received orders on 5 May 1865 to proceed to the Washington Navy Yard, where she was decommissioned on 13 June.

Verbena was sold at public auction there to W. E. Gladwick on 20 July; redocumented as Game Cock on 9 September; renamed Edward G. Burgess on 7 July 1885; and dropped from the registry in 1900.