Laburnum (Tug)
1864-1866
A genus of Eurasian poisonous shrubs and trees with pendulous racemes of bright yellow flowers.
(Tug: tonnage 181; length 110'; beam 22'; draft 9'; speed 10 knots; complement 29; armament 2 20-pounder Parrott rifles, 2 24-pounder howitzers)
Lion, a screw tug built at Philadelphia, Pa., in 1864, was purchased by the Navy on 24 June 1864, renamed Laburnum, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 7 July 1864, Acting Master A. A. Owens in command.
The new tug joined the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Port Royal, S.C., on 17 July 1864. For the remainder of the Civil War she operated in the vicinity of Charleston, S.C., on blockade duty and assisting other ships of the squadron towing and acting as dispatch vessel. Such modest but vital service by ships contributed greatly to the effectiveness of the blockade which ultimately strangled the Confederacy.
On 15 February 1865, Laburnum captured a boat with seven men from the blockade runner Sylph which had run aground on Sullivan’s Island while attempting to escape from Charleston and the tentacles of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s army. Four days later, after the South had evacuated Charleston, Laburnum began removing obstructions between Mount Pleasant and Fort Sumter and continued to labor restoring navigability to the waters of South Carolina until after the end of hostilities.
Decommissioned on 24 January 1866, Laburnum was sold at auction in New York City to L. J. Belloni on 16 March 1866. Redocumented as D. P. Ingraham on 14 May 1866, she served commercial shipping until sold to a foreign purchaser in 1878.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
7 July 2020
