CSS Nashville (1861)

For other ships of the same name, see USS Nashville.

CSS Nashville CSS Nashville
Career (CSA)	Confederate Navy Jack Confederate Navy Jack
Name:	CSS Nashville
Launched:	1853
Commissioned:	1861
Decommissioned:	November 1862
Fate:	As privateer Rattlesnake, sunk by Union forces, February 28, 1863
General characteristics
Displacement:	1,221 long tons (1,241 t)
Length:	215 ft 6 in (65.68 m)
Beam:	34 ft 6 in (10.52 m)
Draft:	21 ft 9 in (6.63 m)
Propulsion:	Sails and steam engine
Complement:	40 officers and men
Armament:	2 × 12-pounder (5 kg) cannons

CSS Nashville was a brig-rigged passenger steamer built at Greenpoint, Brooklyn in 1853. Between 1853 and 1861 she was engaged in running between New York City and Charleston, South Carolina. After the fall of Fort Sumter, the Confederates seized her at Charleston and fitted her out as a cruiser. Under the command of Lieutenant Robert B. Pegram, CSN, she braved the blockade on October 21, 1861, and headed across the Atlantic to Southampton, England, the first ship of war to fly the Confederate flag in English waters. Nashville returned to Beaufort, North Carolina on February 28, 1862, having captured two prizes worth US$66,000 during the cruise. In this interval she was sold for use as a blockade runner and renamed Thomas L. Wragg.

On November 5, 1862, she was commissioned as the privateer Rattlesnake. After running fast aground on the Ogeechee River, Georgia, the monitor USS Montauk destroyed her with shell fire from 11" and 15" turret guns on February 28, 1863.

References

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.