Skip to main content
Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

Related Content
Topic
  • DANFS (Dictionary of American Fighting Ships)
Document Type
  • Ship History
Wars & Conflicts
File Formats
Location of Archival Materials

Abeona (Tinclad Gunboat)

1865

The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.

(Stern wheel steamer: tonnage 206; length 157'; beam 31'; depth of hold 4'; armament 2 30-pounder Parrott rifle, 2 74-pounder smoothbores, 2 12-pounder rifles)

Abeona, a stern wheel steamer built in 1831 at Pittsburgh, Pa., was purchased by the Navy on 21 December 1864 at Cincinnati, Ohio; converted to a so-called "tinclad" gunboat at Mound City, Ill., and comissioned there on 10 April 1865, the day after General Robert E. Lee surrendered in Virginia, with Acting Master Samuel Hall in command.

From that day, the gunboat performed patrol and guard duty on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, primarily in the Mississippi Squadrons Fifth (the Mississippi between Natchez and Vicksburg) and the Tenth (the Cumberland and Upper Ohio) Districts.

After all organized Confederate resistance ceased and the South had begun its painful and uncertain return to a peaceful way of life, Abeona was decommissioned, at Mound City, on 4 August 1865.

She was sold there on 11 August 1865 to J. A. Williamson et al and was redocumented under the same name on 17 October 1865. The veteran stern wheeler operated on the Mississippi and its branches until she caught fire at Cincinnati on 7 March 1872 and was destroyed.

James L. Mooney

8 February 2016

Published: Mon Mar 06 13:12:28 EST 2023