USS Pontiac was a wooden, double-ended, side-wheel gunboat in the United States Navy during the Civil War.

On 13 January 1865, she steamed to Savannah, Georgia, thence some 40 miles (64 km) up the Savannah River to protect General William Tecumseh Sherman's left wing as his troops crossed the river at Sister's Ferry, Georgia, beginning their march north which soon caused Charleston to fall.

Luce later credited his meeting with General Sherman as the beginning of his thinking which eventually resulted in the founding of the Naval War College.

He said: "After hearing General Sherman's clear exposition of the military situation, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes....It dawned on me that there were certain fundamental principles underlying military operations,...principles of general application whether the operations were on land or at sea."

After the war, Pontiac was decommissioned at New York Navy Yard 21 June 1865 and she was sold on 15 October 1867 to John Roach.