USS Hatteras (1861)
USS Hatteras in action with CSS Alabama, off Galveston, Texas, on 11 January 1863
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  United States
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| Name: | USS Hatteras |
| Namesake: | An inlet on the coast of North Carolina |
| Builder: | Harland and Hollingsworth, Wilmington, Delaware |
| Laid down: | date unknown |
| Launched: | date unknown |
| Acquired: | 25 September 1861 |
| Commissioned: | October 1861 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard |
| Out of service: | 11 January 1863 |
| Struck: | 1863 (est.) |
| Fate: | Sunk in action, 11 January 1863 |
| Notes: | formerly known as St. Mary |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steamer |
| Displacement: | 1,126 long tons (1,144 t) |
| Length: | 210 ft (64 m) |
| Beam: | 18 ft (5.5 m) |
| Installed power: | 500 ihp (370 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 8 kn (9.2 mph; 15 km/h) |
| Complement: | 126 |
| Armament: | 4 × 32 pdr (15 kg) guns, 1 × 20 pdr (9.1 kg) gun |
The very first USS Hatteras was a 1,126-ton steamer purchased by the Union Navy at the beginning of the American Civil War. She was outfitted as a gunboat and assigned to the Union blockade of the ports and waterways of the Confederate States of America. During an engagement with the disguised Confederate commerce raider, CSS Alabama, she was taken by surprise and was sunk off the coast of Galveston, Texas. The wreck site is one of the few listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its location away from destructive surf and because of the ship's side-wheel design, which marks the transition between wooden sailing ships and steam-powered ships.
Hatteras (formerly St. Mary) was purchased by the U. S. Navy from Harlan and Hollingsworth of Wilmington, Delaware on 25 September 1861. She was fitted out at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and commissioned in October 1861, Commander George F. Emmons in command.
Hatteras sailed for Key West, Florida on 5 November 1861, arriving there on 13 November to join the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron to choke off the South's economic lifeline as part of president Lincoln's Anaconda Plan. After blockade duty off Apalachicola, Florida, she was reassigned to Cedar Key, Florida, reaching there on 7 January 1862. Nine days later, Hatteras made a highly successful raid on the Cedar Keys harbor, burning seven small would-be blockade runners loaded with turpentine and cotton at the Florida Railroad wharf (an important Southern railroad terminus), several flat-cars, and various buildings.
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