CSS Tallahassee

History
Name:	Tallahassee
Builder:	J & W Dudgeon, Cubitt Town, London
Commissioned:	July 20, 1864
Fate:	Renamed CSS Olustee
General characteristics
Displacement:	700 tons
Length:	220 ft (67 m)
Beam:	24 ft (7.3 m)
Draft:	14 ft (4.3 m)
Propulsion:	2 - 100 h.p steam engines. 2 screws. Mast and sails
Speed:	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement:	120
Armament:	1 rifled 32 pounder forward, 1 rifled 100 pounder amidship, 1 heavy Parrot aft

The CSS Tallahassee was a twin-screw steamer and cruiser in the Confederate States Navy, purchased in 1864, and used for commerce raiding off the Atlantic coast. She later operated under the names CSS Olustee and CSS Chameleon.

The iron Confederate cruiser Tallahassee was named after the Confederate state capital of Tallahassee in Florida and was built on the River Thames by J & W Dudgeon of Cubitt Town, London for London, Chatham & Dover Rly. Co. to the design of Capt. T. E. Symonds, Royal Navy, ostensibly for the Chinese opium trade. She was previously the blockade runner Atalanta and made the Dover-Calais crossing in 77 minutes on an even keel. She had made several blockade runs between Bermuda and Wilmington, N.C. before the Confederates bought her.

After the Tallahassee was commissioned and prepared for sea she was placed under Commander John Taylor Wood, CSN. Wood was a grandson of President Zachary Taylor and a nephew of Jefferson Davis, who at the time was President of the Confederate States of America. The officers and crew were all volunteers from the Confederate gunboats on the James River and North Carolina waters.

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