The first USS Milwaukee, a double-turreted Milwaukee-class river monitor, the lead ship of her class, built for the Union 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.

The ship departed Mound City, Illinois on 15 October and arrived at New Orleans, Louisiana 12 days later.

On 27 March 1865, Milwaukee, together with several other Union ships, sortied upriver in an attempt to cut communications between Spanish Fort and Mobile.

[6] The following day she and her sister ship Winnebago steamed up the Blakely River to attack a Confederate transport and forced it to retreat.

[8] In 1868 the wreck was raised and towed to St. Louis and broken up; her iron was used in the construction of the Eads Bridge across the Mississippi River.