USS Marblehead, a 691-ton Unadilla class screw steam gunboat, was built at Newburyport, Massachusetts. Commissioned in March 1862, she initially served on Virginia's York and Pamunkey Rivers in support of the Army's Peninsular campaign. In mid-1862, Marblehead was transferred to the blockade of the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, where she participated in engagements with the Confederates on the Stono River, S.C., in July and December 1863 and the bombardment of Fort Wagner in Charleston harbor in August 1863.

Damaged by enemy gunfire during an intense 25 December 1863 battle on the Stono River, Marblehead went north for repairs. From June 1864 until September 1866 she was a practice ship at the Naval Academy, taking time off from that employment to conduct coastal patrols during the last part of 1864. As a unit of the North Atlantic Squadron, the gunboat operated in the Caribbean from late 1866 until mid-1868. USS Marblehead decommissioned and was sold in September 1868. She was subsequently converted to a sailing bark for civilian use.