Lily (Tug)
1862-1863
Any of a large group of plants grown from a bulb, typically having white or colored trumpet shaped flowers.
(Tug: tonnage 50)
The steam tug Jessie Benton, purchased by the War Department on 5 May 1862, was used by the Quartermaster Corps on the western rivers; she was known as Jessie until transferred to the Navy on 30 September 1862.
Renamed Lily on 19 October 1862, the tug was placed under the command of newly minted Acting Ens. Richard H. Smith. Assigned to Rear-Adm. David Dixon Porter’s Mississippi Squadron, Lily served on that river, including duty during the Vicksburg campaign, and was sunk near Chickasaw Bayou in the Yazoo River in a collision with the ironclad ram Choctaw on 28 May 1863.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
30 June 2022
