Ice Boat (Gunboat)
1861
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel, in shortened form, at the time of her donation by the city of Philadelphia.
(Gunboat: tonnage 526; complement 50; armament 4 32-pounders)
The side-wheel icebreaker Philadelphia Ice Boat, also known as Refrigerator and Release, was owned by the city of Philadelphia, Pa., which offered her to the U.S. Navy free of expense soon after the outbreak of the Civil War. Ice Boat was placed in service at Philadelphia on 23 April 1861, Cmdr. Oliver S. Glisson, who had participated in Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1853, in command.
Ice Boat departed Philadelphia the same day to protect the landing of troops at Annapolis, Md., to encourage Maryland’s adherence to the Union and to be available for the defense of Washington. Ice Boat was ordered to Washington for duty in the Potomac River on 21 May, arriving two days later.
Most of her service was off Aquia Creek where she labored to stop trade across the Potomac between Virginia and Maryland, occasionally engaging Confederate batteries on the Virginia shore. News of the Union Army’s defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run [21 July 1861, just 30 miles west-southwest of Washington] caused Ice Boat’s return to Washington to defend the Nation's Capital. A fortnight later, the ship returned to the waters off Aquia Creek where she remained until returned to her owner late in November 1861.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
27 May 2022
