CSS General Polk was a sidewheel steamer used as a warship by the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.

launched in 1852 at New Albany, Indiana, as Ed Howard, the vessel was originally a packet steamer between Nashville, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

On June 26, General Polk was burned at Liverpool Landing, Mississippi, along with two other Confederate ships, to prevent their capture by Union forces.

[4] With the formation of the Confederate States of America and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the Confederacy began the task of creating a navy from scratch.

[9] On November 30, General Polk, along with two other Confederate gunboats, met the approach of three Union vessels and followed them back towards Fort Holt.

January 11, 1862, saw General Polk and three other Confederate vessels skirmish with two Union ironclads in the Battle of Lucas Bend.

[11] Union troops captured Point Pleasant, Missouri, on March 6, and began establishing an artillery position there.

General Polk and the gunboat CSS Pontchartrain fired on the position at Point Pleasant on March 7, but were unable to silence it.

[13] General Polk and the gunboat CSS Livingston escorted a transport for the evacuation of one of the Confederate defensive positions, Fort Thompson.

[14] On March 18, General Polk joined five other Confederate ships in a failed attempt to silence a Union battery that had taken up a position across the Mississippi River from Tiptonville, Tennessee, at Riddle's Point.

The attempt was made by General Polk, three vessels of the River Defense Fleet, and four other Confederate gunboats.

Late on April 12, a Confederate scouting mission had been informed that the Union forces planned an attack for the next day.

[23] The three vessels defended the Yazoo River at Liverpool Landing, Mississippi, while the ironclad CSS Arkansas was being completed upriver.

Arkansas was on a test run down the Yazoo River when the burning occurred, but by the time the ironclad arrived, the vessels had been destroyed.