USS Cambridge was a heavy (868 long tons (882 t)) steamship purchased by the Union Navy at the start of the American Civil War.

She was outfitted as a gunboat, with two powerful 8 in (203 mm) rifled guns, and assigned to the blockade of ports and waterways of the Confederate States of America.

Assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from 9 September 1861 – 5 October 1864, and to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from 9 February 1865 until the close of the war, Cambridge helped tighten the stranglehold on the Confederacy as she cruised off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina and South Carolina.

In one of her most daring exploits, Cambridge's guns drove a schooner ashore near Masonboro Inlet, North Carolina on 17 November 1862.

Cambridge is notable for having picked up escaped slave William B. Gould off Cape Fear, North Carolina.