USS Brilliant (1862) was a steamer purchased by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat assigned to patrol Confederate waterways. Brilliant, a wooden stern-wheel steamer, was built in 1862 at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and purchased by the War Department, 13 August 1862 at St. Louis, Missouri; transferred to the Navy with the Western Flotilla 1 October 1862; and commissioned the following day. Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Charles G. Perkins in command.