USS Mattabesett, sometimes spelled Mattabeset, a schooner-rigged, wooden hulled, double-ended sidewheel gunboat, was built by A.

& G. T. Sampson, Boston, Massachusetts, and named for the Mattabesset River in Connecticut.

Mattabesett departed New York on April 21, 1864, for duty in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and arrived at Hampton Roads on April 23 as escort to USS Onondaga.

In the course of the battle, leading to the capture of Plymouth, North Carolina by Confederate forces, Mattabesett, with USS Sassacus, captured Bombshell, but Albemarle and Cotton Plant escaped.

But for a brief trip to New York in the fall of 1864, Mattabesett continued to serve the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron for the remainder of the U.S. Civil War, operating primarily in the inland waters of North Carolina.