The first USS Pequot was a wooden screw gunboat of the Union Navy during the American Civil War.

The ship was launched on 4 June 1863 by the Boston Navy Yard; and commissioned there on 15 January 1864, Lt. Comdr.

The ship was named for the Pequot Indian tribe resident in Southern Connecticut, members of the Algonquian language grouping.

She captured British blockade runner Don off Beaufort, North Carolina, on 4 March, and helped the Army beat back a Confederate attack on Wilson's Wharf, James River, Virginia, on 24 May.

Blockade duty occupied her until she participated in the first and the second battles on Fort Fisher which protected Wilmington, North Carolina, on 24 February 1864 and 13 January 1865, closing that last major Confederate port.