USS Alert was a steamship named A. C. Powell purchased by the Union Navy during the first year of the American Civil War. A. C. Powell – later renamed Alert, and still later renamed Watch – served primarily as a tugboat, but at times she performed duty as a dispatch boat, ship's tender, and even as a gunboat despite the fact that she had on board only a howitzer instead of a cannon or rifle. Built in New York in 1861 Alert – a screw tugboat built in 1861 at Syracuse, New York., under the name A. C. Powell – was purchased at New York City by the Navy on 3 October 1861. Civil War service A. C. Powell early blockade support Since this small tug's logs prior to 27 January 1865 have been lost, there are several significant gaps in our knowledge of her career. All we know of A. C. Powells service until early in the summer of 1862 is that she was operating in the sounds of North Carolina on 13 March 1862. We next hear of her on 30 June, when she was detached from the Potomac River Flotilla for duty in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The reassignment was prompted by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's success in the Seven Days campaign which turned back General George McClellan's Union Army before Richmond, Virginia, and forced it to seek safety on the banks of the James River under the protection of Federal gunboats. A. C. Powell was one of several ships of the Union Navy sent to the James to assure Union control of that indispensable waterway. A. C. Powell renamed USS Alert While the tug was operating on that river, she was renamed Alert. Late in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln decided to withdraw the Army of the Potomac from the peninsula formed by the James and York Rivers and return it to the vicinity of Washington, D.C. to protect the Union capital which was threatened by Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles called Alert back to the Potomac River to strengthen the forces which were to meet Lee, but the steamer was undergoing repairs at Newport News, Virginia, and was unable to get underway until after Union soldiers had stopped Lee at Antietam Creek. With Lee's decision to retire into Virginia, the need for Alert in the Potomac disappeared,