USS Tyler, a 575-ton "timberclad" gunboat, was converted from the commercial side-wheel steamship A.O. Tyler, which had been built in 1857 at Cincinnati, Ohio. Acquired in June 1861 for the Army's Western Gunboat Flotilla, she was commissioned in September with officers provided by the Navy. One of the first Federal warships on the Western Rivers, Tyler saw extensive action on the Mississippi and its tributaries throughout the Civil War, beginning in early September 1861 when she engaged CSS Jackson near Hickman, Kentucky. During 1861 and early 1862, she participated in operations on the Ohio, Upper Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers, firing her guns at Confederate forces on several occasions and participating in the capture of a number of enemy vessels and strategic positions.

In April 1862, Tyler played an important role in the Battle of Shiloh. In June, she joined other Union gunboats in operations on the Yazoo River, where she had a running battle with the Confederate ironclad Arkansas on 15 July 1862. Over the following year, Tyler was further employed on the Yazoo and in support of Army campaigns in Arkansas. She was formally transferred from the Army to the Navy in October 1862. From mid-1863 to the end of the Civil War she was mainly active in the Arkansas area and engaged an enemy shore battery at Clarendon, Arkansas, on 24 June 1864. Tyler was placed out of service soon after the end of the great conflict and was sold in August 1865.