Later that summer,
Teaser was taken into the United States Navy and was assigned to the
Potomac Flotilla. With the exception of three brief deployments elsewhere, USS
Teaser plied the waters of the
Potomac River from
Alexandria, Virginia, south to
Point Lookout,
Maryland, to enforce the
blockade by interdicting a thriving trade in
contraband between the Maryland and Virginia shores. On September 22, she captured
schooner Southerner in the
Coan River. On October 19, while operating in the vicinity of
Piney Point in
St. Mary's County, Maryland, she captured two
smugglers and their boat as they were nearing the exit of Herring Creek and preparing to cross the river to Virginia. On November 2, near the mouth of the
Rappahannock River, the tug surprised three men attempting to violate the blockade in a
canoe.
Teaser took them prisoner and turned their contraband over to pro-Union Virginians living on
Gwynn's Island. Four days later in
Chesapeake Bay,
Teaser took the cargo-less
sloop Grapeshot and captured her three-man crew. By December 1862, she had moved to the Rappahannock River with other units of the Potomac Flotilla to support General
Ambrose Burnside's thrust toward Richmond. On December 10, she exchanged shots with a Confederate battery located on the southern shore of the river about three miles below
Port Royal, Virginia. After Burnside's bloody rebuff at
Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 13,
Teaser and her colleagues returned to their anti-smuggling patrol along the Potomac.
Teaser joined to make March 1863 an active month. On March 24, the two ships sent a boat expedition to reconnoiter
Pope's Creek, Virginia. The landing party found two boats used for smuggling and collected information from Union sympathizers in the area. Almost a week later, on the night of March 30—March 31, they dispatched a three-boat party to
Monroe's Creek, Virginia. The previous day, a Federal
cavalry detachment had surprised a smuggler in the area; and, though the troops captured his goods, the man himself escaped. Boats from
Teaser and
Primrose succeeded where the Union horsemen had failed, and they gathered some intelligence on other contrabanders as well. In April 1863,
Teaser left the Potomac for duty with Acting
Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee's
North Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Hampton Roads. On April 17, she joined and in an expedition up the
Nansemond River west of
Norfolk, Virginia. However, she ran aground, damaged her machinery, and had to retire from the venture. By mid-summer,
Teaser was back in action on the Potomac. On the night of July 27, she captured two smugglers with a boatload of tobacco in the mouth of the Mattawoman Creek just south of
Indian Head, Maryland. She destroyed the boat and sent the prisoners and contraband north to the
Washington Navy Yard. During the night of October 7,
Teaser and another flotilla ship (extant records do not identify her companion) noticed signalling between
Mathias Point, Virginia, and the Maryland shore. The two ships shelled the woods at Mathias Point, but took no action against the signallers on the Maryland shore other than to urge upon the
United States Army's district
provost marshal the necessity of constant vigilance. On January 5, 1864,
Teaser and landed a force of men at
Nomini, Virginia, to investigate a rumor that the Southerners had hidden a large
lighter and a
skiff capable of boating 80 men there. The force, commanded by ''Teaser's'' commanding officer, Acting
Ensign Sheridan, found both boats, destroyed the lighter, and captured the skiff. During the landing, Confederate soldiers appeared on the heights above Nomini, but the gunboats dampened their curiosity with some well-placed cannon shots. In April,
Teaser,
Yankee, , , and accompanied an Army expedition to
Machodoc Creek, Virginia. At 5:00 A.M. on April 13, the five ships cleared the
St. Mary's River in company with the Army's steamer
USAT Long Branch with a battalion of soldiers under the command of General
Edward W. Hinks.
Long Branch landed her troops at about 8:00 A.M. while the five ships covered the operation. A contingent of Confederate cavalry appeared on the southern bank of the Machodoc, but retired when
Teaser and
Anacostia sent four armed boat crews ashore. The landing party netted a prisoner, probably a smuggler, and a large quantity of tobacco. By April 14, General Hinks' troops reembarked in
Long Branch and headed for Point Lookout.
Anacostia accompanied the Army steamer while the other four warships investigated
Currioman Bay and Nomini. They returned to
St. Mary's, Virginia, that afternoon to resume patrols. During the summer of 1864,
Teaser was called upon to leave the Potomac once more. On this occasion, the Union forces needed her guns to help defend strategic bridges across the rivers at the head of Chesapeake Bay near
Baltimore, Maryland, against
Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early's raiders. On July 10, she departed the lower Potomac, rounded Point Lookout, and headed up the Chesapeake Bay. That night, she had to put into the
Patuxent River because of heavy winds and leaks in her hull. Before dawn the following morning, she continued up the bay. During the forenoon, the leaks became progressively worse and, by the time she arrived off
Annapolis, Maryland, she had to remove her exhaust pipe for temporary repairs. Early that evening,
Teaser reached Baltimore where she put in for additional repairs. The gunboat did not reach her destination, the bridge over the
Gunpowder River, until late on July 12. She was too late; the bridge had already been burned. She returned to Baltimore immediately to report on the bridge and to pick up arms and provisions for the vessels stationed in the Gunpowder River. When she arrived back at the bridge, she found orders to return to the Potomac awaiting her.
Teaser departed the northern reaches of the Chesapeake and reported back to the Potomac Flotilla at
St. Inigoes, Virginia, on the St. Mary's River in late afternoon on April 14. For the remainder of the war,
Teaser and her flotilla-mates plied the Potomac and contributed to the gradual economic strangulation which brought the South to its knees by April 1865. Less than two months after General Robert E. Lee's surrender at
Appomattox, Virginia,
Teaser was decommissioned at the
Washington Navy Yard on June 2. Sold at
public auction at Washington to Mr. J. Bigler on June 25, the tug was re-documented as
York River on July 2, 1865, and she served commercially until 1878. ==See also==