Career
Ordered:
Laid down:
Launched:
Commissioned:	24 February 1862
Decommissioned:	20 July 1865
Fate:	sold 29 November 1865
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1033 tons
Length:	202 ft
Beam:	72 ft
Draft:	9 ft
Propulsion:
Speed:	5.5 kts
Range:
Depth:
Complement:	176 officers and enlisted
Armament:	2 9 S.B., 7 32-pdr. S.B., 7 42-pdr. R.

USS Benton was an ironclad river gunboat in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. She was named for Thomas Hart Benton.

Benton was a former center-wheel catamaran snag boat and was converted by James B. Eads, St. Louis, Missouri, in 1861 and commissioned 24 February 1862, Lieutenant J. Bishop in command as part of the Army's Western Gunboat Flotilla .

In the Spring of 1862, she was present at the captures of Island Number Ten, Fort Pillow and Memphis. During the Summer, Benton was in action with the Confederate ironclad Arkansas near Vicksburg, Mississippi, and participated in an expedition up the Yazoo River. She was transferred to the Navy in October 1862, and continued her service as the Mississippi Squadron 's flagship into 1863.

In December 1862, Benton was damaged by Confederate gunfire during another operation on the Yazoo River. She was one of the ships that ran past Vicksburg, Mississippi on 16 April 1863 and bombarded Grand Gulf, Mississippi , later in that month. She participated in an attack on Fort DeRussy, Arkansas , in May, then provided gunfire support for the siege of Vicksburg. In March-May 1864, Benton was involved in the Red River expedition, in Louisiana, and returned to that vicinity in June 1865 during operations that followed the formal end of the Civil War.

Decommissioned 20 July 1865 at Mound City, Illinois, Benton was sold 29 November 1865.

As of 2005, no other U.S. Navy ship has been named Benton.