CSS General Lovell was a cotton-clad sidewheel ram of the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War.

Originally built in 1845 as a steam tug in Cincinnati, the ship was purchased for service in the Confederacy and refitted at New Orleans, where she was converted into a cottonclad ram with cotton bales sandwiched between double pine bulkheads to protect her boilers and machinery and iron casing over her bow.

[1] She was recommissioned in March 1862, and named for Major General Mansfield Lovell, commander of the defenses of New Orleans.

Under Captain B. Paris she was detached from Montgomery's main force and sent to Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the lower Mississippi to cooperate in the Confederate defense of New Orleans.

On 24 April 1862 a Union fleet under Flag Officer David Farragut, USN, ran past Forts Jackson and St. Philip on its way to capture New Orleans.