High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The first USS Barataria was a steamer captured by the Union Army during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways. The steamer was outfitted at New Orleans and armed with two 24 pounder howitzers so that she might serve as a gunboat in the shallow inland waters of Louisiana -- such as Lake Borgne, Lake Pontchartrain, and Lake Maurepas. Although few records of her service have survived, it seems that Barataria was used primarily to support operations of Army troops commanded by Major General Godfrey Weitzel in Louisiana's coastal inland waters.