USS Amazon was a wooden-hulled bark of 318 tons that had previously sailed as a whaler out of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. During the beginning of the American Civil War, she was one of the older vessels and hulks chosen by the Union Navy to be sunk in selected waterways and harbors of the Confederate States of America in order to create underwater obstructions and hazards that could damage and prevent Confederate ships from attempting to "run" the Union blockade.