USS Thomas Freeborn was a steam tug acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Navy as a gunboat to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy to prevent the South from trading with other countries.
USS Thomas Freeborn (left) in the engagement at Mathias Point, 27 June 1861
The steam tug USS Thomas Freeborn in 1861. The photo shows some of the ship's officers and men demonstrating how her late commanding officer, Commander James H. Ward, was sighting her bow gun when he was mortally wounded on 27 June 1861, during an action with Confederate forces at Mathias Point, Virginia. The gun is a 32 pounder smoothbore, of 60 hundredweight, on a "Novelty Carriage". This mounting was developed by Commander Ward before the Civil War
Commander James Harmon Ward was the first officer of the United States Navy who was killed during the American Civil War.
James H. Ward
James Harman Ward
The steam tug USS Thomas Freeborn [left] at Mathis Point June 27, 1861
The steam tug USS Thomas Freeborn in 1861. The photo shows some of the ship's officers and men demonstrating how her late commanding officer, Commander James H. Ward, was sighting her bow gun when he was mortally wounded on 27 June 1861, during an action with Confederate forces at Mathias Point, Virginia. The gun is a 32 pounder smoothbore, of 60 hundredweight, on a "Novelty Carriage". This mounting was developed by Commander Ward before the Civil War
