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CSS Nashville |
| Career (CSA) |
 |
| Launched: |
1853 |
| Commissioned: |
1861 |
| Decommissioned: |
November 1862 |
| Fate: |
As privateer Rattlesnake, sunk by Union forces, February 28, 1863 |
| General characteristics |
| Displacement: |
1221 tons |
| Length: |
215 ft 6 in (65.7 m) |
| Beam: |
34 ft 6 in (10.5 m) |
| Draught: |
21 ft 9 in (6.6 m) |
| Propulsion: |
Sails and steam engine |
| Complement: |
40 officers and men |
| Armament: |
2 x 12 pounder (5 kg) cannons |
- For other ships named Nashville, see USS Nashville.
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.
This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
