R. E. & A. N. WATSON, see LITTLE REBEL R. J. BRECKINRIDGE, see GENERAL BRECKINRIDGE R. J. LOCKLAND SwStr: t. 710; l. 265'; b. 40'; dph. 7' R. J. LOCKLAND was built at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1867. She served the Confederates as a transport in the Mississippi River area, and she was part of the force under Comdr. I. N. Brown, CSN, commanding Confederate vessels in the Yazoo River. In July 1863, R. J. LOCKLAND was burned to the water's edge by Commander Brown and sunk in the Yazoo River, 16 miles below Greenwood Miss., to block the channel and delay the advance of Union forces under Gen. W. T. Sherman, USA, towards Vicksburg, Miss., and to escape the hands of the Union naval force under Acting Rear Adm. D. D. Porter, USN. R. T. RENSHAW, see RENSHAW RALEIGH StGbt: t. 65; a. 1 to 4 guns, variously CSS RALEIGH was originally a small, iron-hulled propeller-driven towing steamer operating on the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal. She was taken over by the State of North Carolina in May 1861 and transferred to the Confederate States the following July. Her commanding officer during 1861-62 was Lt. J. W. Alexander, CSN. Her entire service was in coastal waters of North Carolina and Virginia and in the James River. RALEIGH supported Forts Hatteras and Clark on 28-29 August 1861; took part in an expedition on 1 October to capture United States Army steamer FANNY with valuable stores on board; and accompanied CSS SEA BIRD when she reconnoitered Pamlico Sound 20 January 1862. She was also active in defense of Roanoke Island, N.C., against an amphibious assault by overwhelming Federal forces on 7-8 February 1862 at Elizabeth City N.C., 2 days later. Thence RALEIGH escaped through Dismal Swamp Canal to Norfolk, Va. On 8-9 March 1862 RALEIGH was tender to CSS VIRGINIA during the historic battle of ironclads at Hampton Roads, for which she received the thanks of the Confederate Congress. With the Federal recapture of Norfolk Navy Yard in May 1862, Raleigh steamed up the James River but thereafter a shortage of crew members restricted her to flag-of-truce or patrol service. RALEIGH, renamed ROANOKE near the end of the war was destroyed by the Confederates on 4 April 1866 upon the evacuation of Richmond. IrcRam: l. 150'; b. 32'; dph. 14'; dr. 12'; cpl. 188; a. 4 6" r.; type RICHMOND CSS RALEIGH, a steam sloop, was constructed by the Confederate States Navy at Wilmington, N.C., in 1863-64, with Lt. John Wilkinson, CSN, commanding. She was reported in commission on 30 April 1864 under the command of Lt. J. P. Jones, CSN. Built to Constructor John L. Porter's plans, similar to those of North Carolina, she had been laid down and launched at the foot of Church Street, completed at the shipyard of J. L. Cassidy & Sons. On 6 May, she emerged from Cape Fear River accompanied by CSS YADKIN and EQUATOR and inconclusively engaged six Federal blockaders off New Inlet, N.C. When the six reappeared the following day, RALEIGH hastily withdrew up river, struck Wilmington Bar and "broke her back." Her iron plating was salvaged. RANDOLPH Str The steamer RANDOLPH was operated in the Charleston, S.C., area by private parties but under the control of Maj. Gen. S. Jones, CSA, during 1863-64. RAPPAHANNOCK SwStr: t. 1,200; a. 1 gun RAPPAHANNOCK, originally the passenger steamer St. Nicholas, was captured in the Potomac River on 28 June 1861. On a regularly scheduled run between Baltimore and Georgetown, D.C., she was boarded at various points along the Potomac by Confederates posing as passengers. Leaders of this group were Col. R. Thomas, CSA, who came on board disguised as a woman, and Page 560 Capt. G. N. Hollins, CSN. They seized the steamer near Point Lookout and Captain Hollins took command, sailing the ship down to Chesapeake Bay, where she took three prizes on 29 June. Condemned as a prize, purchased by the Confederate Navy and commanded by Lt. H. H. Lewis, CSN, she operated in the Potomac and Rappahannock until April 1862 only to be burned by the Confederates at Fredericksburg. StSlp: t. 867; l. 200 bp.; b. 30' 2"; dph. 14' 6" RAPPAHANNOCK, a steam sloop-of-war, was built in the Thames River in 1857 for the British Government and named VICTOR. Although a handsomely modeled vessel, numerous defects occasioned her sale in 1863. An agent of the Confederate States Government purchased her ostensibly for the China trade, but British authorities suspected she was destined to be a Confederate commerce raider and ordered her detention. Nevertheless, she succeeded in escaping from Sheerness, England, on 24 November, with workmen still on board and only a token crew. Her Confederate Naval officers joined in the Channel. When he bought her from the Admiralty through his secret agent on 14 November, Comdr. M. F. Maury had intended RAPPAHANNOCK to replace unwanted, iron GEORGIA and was about to transfer GEORGIA's battery to her. She was ideal for a cruiser-wooden hull, bark-rigged, two engines and a lifting screw propeller-but she was doomed to serve the Confederacy no more glamorously than a floating depot. She was commissioned a Confederate man-of-war underway, but while passing out of the Thames Estuary her bearings burned out and she had to be taken across to Calais for repairs. There Lt. C. M. Fauntleroy, CSN, was placed in command. Detained on various pretexts by the French Government, RAPPAHANNOCK never got to sea and was turned over to the United States at the close of the war. RATTLESNAKE, see NASHVILLE RAVEN Yawl RAVEN, under Acting Master Edward McGuire, CSN, belonged to the "Confederate Volunteer Coast Guard," as it was locally known in Mathews County, Va. He served under the derring-do specialist, Master John Yates Beall, CSN. Particulars of RAVEN are nowhere given in official records; she may have been another yawl or even a skiff made to serve the purpose of the guerrillas, but she was at all times inseparable from SWAN, commanded by Beall. REBEL SwStr REBEL served the Confederates as a troop transport in the rivers and waters of Virginia and North Carolina. RED ROVER SwStr: t. 786; dr. 8'; s. 8 k. RED ROVER was built as a sidewheel steamer at Cape Girardeau, Mo., in 1859 and purchased at New Orleans by the Confederacy on 7 November 1861 to serve as a barracks and accommodation ship for the crew of the floating battery NEW ORLEANS. Lt. J. J. Guthrie, CSN had joint command of both ships, having placed NEW ORLEANS in commission at New Orleans on 14 October 1861. RED ROVER assisted in the defense of Columbus, Ky. then joined the formidable Confederate blockade of the Federal Western Gunboat Flotilla at Island Number 10 in the Mississippi River. She was put out of service early in the Federal naval bombardment which began on 15 March 1862, being pierced through all her decks and the bottom by a piece of shell which caused considerable leakage. She was moored on the opposite side of Island Number 10 after this action and remained there until captured on 7 April by Acting Master C. Dominy of the Page 561 Federal Gunboat MOUND CITY. Fitted out by the United States Army in St. Louis as a temporary summer floating hospital for the Western Gunboat Flotilla, she was later converted to winter use and commissioned the first hospital ship of the United States Navy on 26 December 1862. Her nursing staff was headed by Sisters of the Order of the Holy Cross, pioneers of the Navy Nurse Corps. The first of her kind to carry women nurses RED ROVER gave comfort to only three less than 2,500 patients during an illustrious career with Acting Rear Adm. D. D. Porter's Mississippi Squadron that terminated on 17 November 1865. RELIANCE ScStr: t. 90; l. 88' 2"; b. 17'; dph 7' 5"; cpl. 40; a 1 30-pdr. r., 1 24-pdr. how. RELIANCE was built at Keyport, N.J., in 1860 and first enrolled at New York City. Originally a Federal gunboat stationed in lower Chesapeake Bay, RELIANCE was surprised, boarded, and captured on the night of 19 August 1863 at the mouth of the Rappahannock River by a Confederate naval assault party led by Lt. John Taylor Wood. With SATELLITE, captured at the same time, RELIANCE was taken to Port Royal, Va., where she was destroyed on 28 August to prevent recapture by Kilpatrick's advancing Federal cavalry. RENSHAW Sch: t. 75; l. 68'; b. 20'; dph. 5' 4" RENSHAW, also known as R. T. RENSHAW, was in Confederate service near Washington, N.C., in the Tar River on 20 May 1863, when she was seized by a launch from USS LOUISIANA. Sent in as a prize, she was acquired by the Union for carrying ordnance. REPUBLIC SwStr: t. 699; l. 249'; b. 40'; dr. 7.3' The steamboat REPUBLIC, owned in New Orleans in 1861, had been built at Jeffersonville, Ind., in 1865. Confederate Navy records do not reveal the length or nature of her mission but Union intelligence unmistakably credited REPUBLIC with being one of the largest troop transports on the upper Yazoo River until she was selected, prior to May 1863, for conversion to a ram. Thus REPUBLIC was being armored at Yazoo City when Federal forces threatened, her charred remains were found at the navy yard there when Admiral Porter's forces took possession, 21 May. Porter's 24 May report to Secretary Welles notes, "Three powerful rams were burned *** (including) the REPUBLIC, being fitted for a ram with railroad iron plating." RESOLUTE SwRam: cpl. 40; a. 2 32-pdr. r., 1 32-pdr sb. RESOLUTE, a side-wheel gunboat ram, had been a tugboat on the Mississippi River before she was acquired by the Confederate Government. Capt. J. E. Montgomery selected her to be part of his River Defense Fleet [See Annex II]. On 25 January 1862 Montgomery began to convert her into a cottonclad ram by placing a 4-inch oak sheath with a 1-inch iron covering on her bow, and by installing double pine bulkheads filled with compressed cotton bales. RESOLUTE's conversion was completed on 31 March 1862. Under Capt. I. Hooper, she was detached from Montgomery's main force and sent to Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the lower Mississippi to cooperate in the Confederate defense of New Orleans. There, with five other vessels of Montgomery's fleet, all under Capt. J. A. Stevenson, she joined the force under Capt. J. K. Mitchell, CSN, commanding Confederate naval forces in the lower Mississippi. On 24 April 1862 a Union fleet under Flag Officer D. G. Farragut, USN, ran past Forts Jackson and St. Philip on its way to capture New Orleans. RESOLUTE was run ashore a mile above Fort Jackson by her crew who raised a white flag and then abandoned her. A party of 10 men under Lieutenant T. Arnold, CSN, sent from CSS MCRAE, boarded her, hauled down her white flag, and manned her guns. Later, while attempting to get her afloat, RESOLUTE was attacked by long range Union fire and was pierced by several rifle shot, some below her water line. RESOLUTE's damage could not be repaired quickly, and since another Union attack was expected and since she lay dangerously exposed to land and sea the Confederates burned her on 26 April 1862 to keep her from falling into Union hands. SwStr: t. 322; cpl. 35; a. none CSS RESOLUTE was a tugboat built in 1858 at Savannah Ga. She entered Confederate service in 1861 and operated as a tow boat, transport, receiving ship, and tender to the sidewheeler CSS SAVANNAH on the coastal and inland waters of Georgia and South Carolina. On 5-6 November 1861, RESOLUTE, under Lt. J. P. Jones, CSN, in company with LADY DAVIS, SAMPSON and SAVANNAH, under the overall command of Flag Officer J. Tattnall, CSN, offered harassing resistance to a much larger Union fleet preparing to attack Confederate strongholds at Port Royal Sound, S.C. On 7 November 1861, while RESOLUTE had been sent to Savannah with dispatches, the Union fleet under Flag Officer S. F. Du Pont, USN, pounded the Confederate Forts Walker and Beauregard until they were abandoned. Upon her return, RESOLUTE helped evacuate the garrison of Fort Walker and then returned to spike the Confederate guns at Pope's Landing on Hilton Head Island. On 26 November 1861, RESOLUTE, in company with SAMPSON and SAVANNAH, under Flag Officer Tattnall weighed anchor from under the guns of Fort Pulaski, S.C., and made a brief attack on Union vessels at the mouth of the Savannah River. On 28 January 1862, accompanied by SAMPSON and SAVANNAH, she delivered supplies to the fort despite the spirited opposition of Federal ships. On 12 December 1864 while on an expedition with the gunboats MACON and SAMPSON, under Flag Officer W. W. Hunter, CSN, to destroy the Charleston and Savannah Railway bridge spanning the Savannah River, Resolute received heavy fire from a Union field battery. Although hit twice she was not seriously damaged until she was disabled by colliding with the two gunboats during their retreat. Although the gunboats escaped, RESOLUTE ran aground on Argyle Island on the Savannah River. She was captured on the same day by Union soldiers under Col. W. Hawly, USA, of General Sherman's forces, and taken into Federal service. RETRIBUTION, see UNCLE BEN RICHMOND IrcRam: l.160'(bp.), 172'6"; b. 34' (molded); dph. 14'; dr. 12'; cpl. 160; s. 5 to 6 k.; a. 4 rifled guns, 2 on each side, and 2 shell guns, one on each side; 1 spar torpedo; type RICHMOND CSS RICHMOND was built at Gosport (Norfolk) Navy Yard to the design of John L. Porter with money and scrap iron collected by the citizens of Virginia whose imagination had been captured by the ironclad VIRGINIA. Page 562 Consequently she was sometimes referred to as VIRGINIA II, VIRGINIA NO. 2 or YOUNG VIRGINIA in the South and as MERRIMACK NO. 2, NEW MERRIMACK or YOUNG MERRIMACK by Union writers, months before the actual VIRGINIA II was ever laid down. Begun in March 1862, RICHMOND was launched 6 May and towed up to the Confederate capital that very night to escape Federal forces again in possession of Norfolk Navy Yard and the lower James River. RICHMOND was thus finished at Richmond in July 1862 and placed in commission by Comdr. R. B. Pegram, CSN. Twenty-two inches of yellow pine and oak plus 4 inches of iron protected her roof and "she is ironed 3 feet below her load lines," wrote Shipyard Superintendent John H. Burroughs. During 1863 and early 1864 the James front was quiet but from May 1864 momentous events followed in quick succession. The Confederates had three new ironclads in Capt. French Forrest's squadron there and minor actions were frequent. During 1864 RICHMOND, under Lt. William H. Parker, CSN, took part in engagements at Dutch Gap, 13 August; Fort Harrison, 29 September-1 October; Chapin's Bluff, 22 October. On 23-24 January 1865, she was under heavy fire while aground with VIRGINIA above the obstructions at Trent's Reach-fortunately at an angle that encouraged Federal projectiles to ricochet harmlessly off their casemates. But RICHMOND's tender, SCORPION, not thus armored, was severely damaged by the explosion of CSS DREWRY's magazine as DREWRY ended her life, lashed alongside RICHMOND. The ironclads withdrew under their Chapin's Bluff batteries for a few weeks but RICHMOND had to be destroyed by Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes, CSN, squadron commander, prior to evacuation of the capital, 3 April. ROANOKE Str The small steamer ROANOKE was chartered in June 1861 from the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal Co. by Comdr. F. Forrest to keep open Confederate communications on the Nansemond River in Virginia. She carried on similar duties off the North Carolina coast in 1862. ROANOKE, see RALEIGH ROBB, see ALFRED ROBB ROBERT E. LEE SwStr: t. 900; l. 283'; b. 20'; dph. 13'; dr. 10'; s 9-13.5 k. ROBERT E. LEE was a schooner-rigged, iron-hulled, oscillating-engined paddle-steamer with two stacks, built on the Clyde during the autumn of 1862 as a fast Glasgow-Belfast packet. Alexander Collie & Co., Manchester, acquired her for their blockade-running fleet but were persuaded by renowned blockade-runner Lt. John Wilkinson, CSN, to sell her, as GIRAFFE, to the Navy Department for the same 32,000 pounds jut paid. Her first voyage, for the Confederate Navy, was into Old Inlet, Wilmington, N.C., in January 1863 with valuable munitions and 26 Scot lithographers, eagerly awaited by the Government bureau of engraving and printing. On 26 January, Union intelligence maintained she "could be captured easily" at anchor in Ossabaw Sound, but this was not to be for another 10 months. Running out again, R. E. LEE started to establish a nearly legendary reputation by leaving astern blockader USS IROQUOIS. Lt. Richard H. Gayle, CSN, assumed command in May, relieving Lt. John Wilkinson but the latter was conning the ship again out of Cape Fear River from Smithville, N.C., on 7 October 1863, as recounted by Lt. Robert D. Minor, CSN, in a letter-to Admiral Franklin Buchanan, 2 February 1864, detailing the first venture to capture USS MICHIGAN and liberate 2,000 Confederate prisoners at Johnson's Island, Sandusky, Ohio (cf. GEORGIA, PHILO PARSONS and J. H. JARVIS): R. E. LEE transported Wilkinson, Minor, Lt. Benjamin P. Loyall and 19 other naval officers to Halifax, N.S., with $35,000 in gold and a cotton cargo "subsequently sold at Halifax for $76,000 (gold) by the War Department-in all some $111,000 in gold, as the sinews of the expedition." Thus Wilkinson was in Canada and Gayle commanding when ROBERT E. LEE's luck ran out, 9 November 1863, after 21 voyages in 10 months carrying out over 7,000 bales of cotton, returning with munitions invaluable to the Confederacy. She left Bermuda five hours after her consort, CORNUBIA (q.v.), only to be run down a few hours after her by the same blockader, USS JAMES ADGER. The two runners were conceded to be easily "the most noted that ply between Bermuda and Wilmington." ROBERT E. LEE was bought by the U.S. Navy from the Boston prize court for $73,000 in January 1864. On 27 February she was renamed FORT DONELSON and served out the war as a blockader. ROBERT FULTON SwStr: t. 158 ROBERT FULTON, also known as FULTON, was built in 1860 at California, Pa. She served as a Confederate army transport in the Mississippi River. ROBERT FULTON, Capt. J. F. Saunders commanding, was surprised and captured along with ARGUS at the mouth of the Red River, La., on 7 October 1863 by a boat crew dispatched from USS OSAGE. She was burned with all her stores when her captors were unable to pass a shoal in taking her out of the Red River. ROBERT HABERSHAM SwStr: t. 173 ROBERT HABERSHAM was built in 1860 at Savannah, Ga. She served the Confederates as a transport in the Savannah area. ROBERT MCCLELLAND, see PICKENS ROEBUCK SwStr: t. 164; l. 147'; b. 23'; dph. 5' ROEBUCK was built in 1857 at Brownsville, Pa., and chartered during the Civil War by the Texas Marine Department [See Annex III]. She served the Confederate Army as an unarmed cottonclad transport off the coast of Texas. ROSINA SwStr: t. 1,391; l. 260'; b. 33'; dph. 15'; dr. 9’; s. 14 k.; cl. ROSINA ROSINA was on order for the Confederate Navy in Great Britain when war ended. She was Jones, Quiggin & Co.'s Hull No. 174, begun at Liverpool in 1864 or 1865; little else is known of her except that she was one of a pair, the largest of the Navy's blockade-runner designs, and would have carried 1,500 bales of cotton. Page 563 ROUNDOUT SwStr ROUNDOUT, a Confederate transport, was captured in the Rappahannock River by the Potomac Flotilla in April 1862. ROYAL YACHT Sch: t. 40; dr. 6'6"; cpl. 16; a. 1 12-pdr. On 10 October 1861 ROYAL YACHT, reputed to be the fastest schooner on the Texas coast, was chartered by Comdr. W. W. Hunter, CSN, for naval patrol duty off Galveston. Five days later she was damaged by a violent squall which caused the loss of her bowsprit. She was armed by the 23d and went on station between Bolivar and East Points. About 0230, 8 November, ROYAL YACHT was surprised at anchor outside Bolivar Point Lighthouse and, "after a desperate encounter," set afire by Lts. J. E. Jouett and J. G. Mitchell, commanding the first and second launches from USS SANTEE, blockading the port Capt. T. Chubb and others were captured, but eventually paroled. At 0330, the watch on CSS BAYOU CITY lowered their boats to investigate and extinguished the fire with a few buckets of water, minutes before the magazine would certainly have exploded. At 0900, ROYAL YACHT was towed alongside GENERAL RUSK to remove arms and ammunition; her upper hamper was ruined but hull intact. On 11 November she was returned to Captain Charles Chubb, father of her captain, also part owner. On 10 May 1862, Col. J. J. Cook, Confederate States Artillery, asked Commander Hunter to "deliver to Capt. Thomas Chubb as many arms and equipment as will suffice him to fit out his schooner, the ROYAL YACHT, for harbor service." She is known to have served again with BAYOU CITY off Galveston as late as the end of October. Some time during the next 5 months, she was fitted out as a blockade runner for, on 16 April 1863, the schooner was overhauled by a boat from U.S. Bark WILLIAM G. ANDERSON and sent to be condemned by the Key West prize court, along with her 97 bales of best cotton. The bark had not been able to outsail ROYAL YACHT but her second cutter, after a hard 6-hour chase, placed the quarry within range of a one-pounder Butler rifle and induced Captain Chubb to surrender once more. RUBY SwStr: t. 1,391; l. 260'; b. 33'; dph. 16'; dr. 9'; s. 14 k.; cl. ROSINA RUBY would certainly have attracted attention as the Confederate Navy's largest blockade-runner design, had she been completed in time to serve. All that is now certain of her history is the fact that she was laid down at the Jones, Quiggin yard, largest builder for the Confederacy in the United Kingdom. She was ordered by Comdr. J. D. Bulloch, CSN, in Liverpool during 1864. RUTHVEN, see A. S. RUTHVEN