USS Tioga, a 1120-ton Genesee class "double-ender" side wheel steam gunboat built at the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts, was commissioned in late June 1862. During that summer, she operated on Virginia's James River covering the final phases of the Army's Peninsular Campaign. Following brief service on the Potomac River, in August 1862 Tioga was sent to the West Indies to guard against Confederate cruisers and blockade runners. Over the next year, she captured or helped take several of the latter, most of them sailing vessels.

Transferred to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in September 1863, Tioga seized three additional sailing blockade runners. Ordered north in June 1864 to control an outbreak of yellow fever among her crew, the gunboat was decommissioned for overhaul. She reentered active service a year later for operations off the New England coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. USS Tioga went out of commission in May 1866 and was sold in October 1867.