USS Osceola was a wooden, sidewheel Sassacus-class gunboat which saw combat with the Union Navy in the American Civil War.

She was designed with shallow draft and double-ends specifically to allow her to operate in the narrow rivers and inlets along the Confederate coast.

After her military service she was converted to a four-masted schooner to carry lumber between St. John, New Brunswick, and Montevideo, Uruguay.

One of the Union Navy's principal duties during the Civil War was to blockade the Confederacy's ports, hurting its economy and denying it manufactured goods, particularly arms, from overseas.

A challenge with this assignment was that the coast of the Confederacy had a myriad of small, shallow, rivers and bays, many of which might harbor a blockade runner.

[1] Osceola was the third vessel built under contract for the Navy at the shipyard of John J. Curtis and Edward F. Tilden in East Boston.

[5] In October 1862 the Navy entered into contracts with the Atlantic Works of Boston for Osceola's engines, boilers, and related machinery.

This equipment required significantly more material than originally estimated by the Navy, and Congress subsequently awarded an additional $20,513.73 to the Atlantic Works.

On the night of 4 May 1864, a Union fleet including Osceola sailed up Virginia's James River in support of General Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign.

[5] On 4 August 1864 Osceola and USS Miami shelled a Confederate battery which was firing on Union transports near Harrison's Landing, Virginia.

[12] In December 1864 the ship was assigned to support Admiral Porter's assault on Fort Fisher, which guarded the Cape Fear River approach to Wilmington.

While Captain Clitz was able to stop the leak, the ship was disabled and had to be towed out of range of the battle by USS Advance.

[14] During this first assault, naval gunfire silenced Fort Fisher's artillery, but the landing force was unable to take the bastion and was withdrawn on 25 December 1864.

On 15 January 1865, the army landed troops to the north of the fort, and Osceola's division provided a creeping bombardment in front of them as they advanced to the south.

[16] Fort Fisher was taken but the victory was hard fought; Osceola suffered three men wounded badly enough to be admitted to hospital.

Immediately after that fight, Porter's gunboats, including Osceola, pushed further up the river and bombarded Fort Strong.

[23] Having commissioned, fought, and returned his gunboat to the shipyard, Commander Clitz was detached from Osceola on 12 May 1865 and the ship was decommissioned the next day.

She left suddenly on 4 May 1867 and sailed to Cartagena, Colombia where she obtained the release of ten American sailors who had been seized by Colombian naval authorities.

She experienced multiple mechanical breakdowns and with her light draft and flat bottom, designed for narrow river channels, she rolled excessively in ocean swells.

[31] Gibson contracted with Boston merchants Flint & Hall on 4 March 1868 to convert Osceola into a four-masted schooner to haul timber between St. John, New Brunswick and Montevideo, Uruguay.