The CSS Neuse was a Confederate gunboat. Work began in October of 1862 on the bank across the Neuse River (her namesake) from the small village of Whitehall, North Carolina (present day Seven Springs). The hull of the gunboat was 158 feet (48 m) long by 34 feet (10 m) wide, and she was constructed mostly of locally abundant pine, with some 4 inches (100 mm) of oak used as sturdy backing for her 4-inch-thick (100 mm) wrought iron armor. Many delays in construction were incurred by a lack of available materials, mostly the iron plate for her armored casemate and deck; her deck armor was finally left off so the ironclad could be completed and put in service. Due to continuing iron plate shortages, Neuse became the first of several Southern ironclads built with unarmored decks. This situation was compounded by the Confederate Army exercising priority over the Navy in the use of the South’s inadequate railroad system for transporting vital war material.

Launched in November 1863 while still needing fitting out, Neuse finally got up steam in April 1864 for duty on the inland waters of North Carolina as part of the force under Commander R. F. Pinkney, CSN. Shortly thereafter, the ironclad grounded off Kinston due to her mostly inexperienced crew, which had been conscripted from the Confederate Army; she remained fast in the mud for almost a month until finally being refloated. After that, due to a lack of available Confederate Army shore support, she never left the river area around Kinston, serving instead as a floating ironclad fortification. In March 1865, with Kinston under siege by Union forces, gunpowder trails were laid down which led to a cache of explosives placed in her bow; the crew then lit fires astern and amidships, and she was destroyed a short time later by fire, then a bow explosion. Neuse burned to just below her waterline and then sank into the river mud preventing capture by the rapidly advancing Union Army forces, commanded by Major General John M. Schofield. At some point following the war, her sunken hulk, lying in shallow river water and mud, was salvaged of its valuable metals: cannon, carriages and their fittings, anchors, iron ram, casemate armor, both propellers and their shafts, and her steam power plant. Whatever bits and pieces remained, including her projectiles, lay undisturbed in and around the wreck until Neuse was raised nearly a century later.