From: Dictionary of American Fighting Ships

William Badger was a New Hampshire shipwright who built the 74-gun ship-of-the-line Washington and merchant ships for the West Indies trade. The whaling ship William Badger may have been named for him.

(Whaler: t. 334; l. 106'0"; b. 26'0"; dph. 13'3"; a 1 32-pdr.)

William Badger-a wooden-hulled whaling ship was purchased by the Navy on 18 May 1861 from Henry F. Thomas, at New Bedford, Mass. Assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, William Badger served as a stationary supply ship at Hampton Roads, Va., into the summer of 1862. Late in July William Badger-laden with a "goodly supply of provisions, clothing, and stores" for the ships of the Union Navy maintaining the blockade off Confederate-held Wilmington, N.C.-was towed by the steamer State of Georgia to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron base at Beaufort, N.C. She remained there as a supply hulk for the remainder of the Civil War and, on occasion, served as an accommodations vessel.

Sold at auction at Beaufort on 17 October 1865 to a Capt. James Abel, William Badger may have been broken up shortly thereafter, as she is not carried on mercantile lists in succeeding years.