USS Catawba was a single-turreted built for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Completed shortly after the end of the war, Catawba was laid up until sold to her builders in 1868, and then resold to the Peruvian Navy. Renamed BAP Atahualpa, the ship participated in the defense of main port of Peru, Callao, during the War of the Pacific. When the city of Lima was taken by Chilean troops in 1881, she was scuttled to prevent her capture. Atahualpa was later refloated and used as a storage hulk until scrapped in the early 20th century. Design Catawba was long overall, had a beam of and had a maximum draft of . Catawba had a tonnage of 1,034 tons burthen and displaced . Her crew consisted of 100 officers and enlisted men. Catawba was powered by a two-cylinder horizontal Ericsson vibrating-lever steam engine that drove one propeller using steam generated by four Stimers horizontal fire-tube boilers. The engine gave the ship a top speed of . She carried of coal. Catawbas main armament consisted of two smoothbore, muzzle-loading, Dahlgren guns mounted in a single gun turret. Each gun weighed approximately . They could fire a shell up to a range of at an elevation of +7°. The exposed sides of the hull were protected by five layers of wrought iron plates, backed by wood. The armor of the gun turret and the pilot house consisted of ten layers of one-inch plates. The ship's deck was protected by armor thick. A soft iron band was fitted around the base of the turret to prevent shells and fragments from jamming the turret as had happened during the First Battle of Charleston Harbor in April 1863. The base of the funnel was protected to a height of by of armor. A "rifle screen" of armor high was installed on the top of the turret to protected the crew against Confederate snipers based on a suggestion by Commander Tunis A. M. Craven, captain of her sister ship . Construction The contract for Catawba, the first Navy ship to be named after the Catawba River, in North Carolina, was awarded to Alexander Swift & Company; the ship was laid down in 1862, at their Cincinnati, Ohio, shipyard. She was launched on 13 April 1864, and turned over to the US Navy, on 7 June 1865. The ship's construction was delayed by multiple changes