USS Thomas Freeborn, a 269-ton (burden) side-wheel steam gunboat, was built at Brooklyn, New York in 1860 as a commercial steamship. She was chartered by the Navy in April 1861 and purchased early in May. During that month she engaged the Confederates in the Hampton Roads area, assisted in the occupation of Alexandria, Virginia, and fought with enemy shore batteries at Aquia Creek, on the Potomac River. She was also active on the Potomac during June 1861 and on the 24th and 27th engaged the Confederates at Mathias Point. During the latter action her Commanding Officer, James H. Ward, was shot and mortally wounded.

Thomas Freeborn was part of the Potomac Flotilla for the rest of the Civil War. She captured or destroyed several would-be blockade runners and took part in a number of combat actions. Among the latter were a 21 February 1863 fight with a shore battery near Fort Lowry, Virginia, in which she was hit by enemy gunfire, and a raid up the Rappahannock River on 29 April 1864. In April 1865 she participated in the search for John Wilkes Booth, who had murdered President Abraham Lincoln on the 14th. USS Thomas Freeborn was decommissioned at Washington, D.C., in mid-June 1865 and sold in July. Subsequently operating as the merchant steamer Philip, she was removed from shipping registers in 1887.