CSS General Beauregard was a cotton-clad sidewheel ram of the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. Built in Algiers, Louisiana in 1847 as a towboat, the paddle steamer Ocean was selected in January 1862 by Capt. James E. Montgomery, former river steamboat master, for his River Defense Fleet. At New Orleans, on 25 January, Captain Montgomery began her conversion to a cotton-clad ram, installing oak and iron sheathing over her bow, with cotton bales sandwiched between double pine bulkheads to protect her boilers.