CSS Raleigh (1864)

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Career Confederate Navy Jack Confederate Naval Ensign after 1863
Laid down: 1863
Launched: 1864
Commissioned: 1864
Status: Ran aground May 7, 1864; salvaged
General Characteristics
Displacement:
Length: 150 feet
Beam: 32 feet
Draft: 12 feet
Propulsion: Steam engine
Speed:
Complement: 188 officers and men
Armament: 4 6" Brooke rifled cannons
For other ships named Raleigh, see CSS Raleigh.

CSS Raleigh, a steam sloop, was constructed by the Confederate States Navy at Wilmington, North Carolina in 1863-64, with Lieutenant John Wilkinson, CSN, commanding. She was reported in commission on April 30, 1864 under the command of Lieutenant J. Pembroke Jones, CSN.

Built to Constructor John L. Porter's plans, similar to those of CSS 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 May 6, she emerged from Cape Fear River accompanied by CSS Yadkin and CSS Equator and inconclusively engaged six Federal blockaders, including the USS Britannia and the USS Nansemond, off New Inlet, North Carolina. When the six reappeared the following day, Raleigh hastily withdrew up river, struck Wilmington Bar and "broke her back." Her iron plating was salvaged.


This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.


Ironclads of the Confederate States Navy
Albemarle | Arkansas | Baltic | Chicora | Charleston | Columbia | Fredericksburg | Georgia | Louisiana | Manassas | Mississippi | Muscogee | Nashville | Neuse | North Carolina | Palmetto State | Raleigh | Richmond | Savannah | Stonewall | Tennessee I | Tennessee II | Texas | Virginia | Virginia II

List of ships of the Confederate States Navy