USS Chickasaw was an ironclad Milwaukee-class river monitor built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War.

[3] The ship's main armament consisted of four smoothbore, muzzle-loading 11-inch Dahlgren guns mounted in two twin-gun turrets.

The deck was heavily cambered to allow headroom for the crew on such a shallow draft and it consisted of iron plates .75 inches (19 mm) thick.

She was transferred to Rear Admiral David Farragut's West Gulf Blockading Squadron on 9 July,[7] together with her sister Winnebago.

The larger, more heavily armed monitors Tecumseh and Manhattan were to keep the ironclad ram CSS Tennessee away from the vulnerable wooden ships while they were passing Fort Morgan and then sink her.

[10] The Confederate ironclad was shooting at the wooden ships at this time at point-blank range in a chaotic melee with both sides making multiple attempts to ram each other.

[11] Perkins claimed that his ship shot away the Tennessee's flagstaff, smokestack and the exposed steering chains that controlled her rudder.

Chickasaw was struck 11 times during the action, with one shot penetrating her deck that set some of the crew's hammocks on fire.

[10] Two of Chickasaw's sailors, Chief Boatswain's Mate Andrew Jones and Master-at-Arms James Seanor, were later awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions during the battle.

[12][13] Later that day, the ship captured a barge out from under the guns of Fort Powell, a fortification guarding another entrance to Mobile Bay further north.

[15] Together with the ironclad Cincinnati and the steamboat Nyanza, under the overall command of Captain Edward Simpson, Chickasaw sailed up the Tombigbee River on 9 May 1865 to Nanna Hubba Bluff where Simpson accepted the surrender of the casemate ironclad Nashville, the gunboats Baltic and Morgan, and the river boat Black Diamond from Commodore Ebenezer Ferrand.

She was sold on 12 September 1874[7] to the New Orleans Pacific Railway Company who modified the ship into a coal barge with the name of Samson.