USS Red Rover (1859)
USS Red Rover
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| History | |
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  United States
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| Name: | USS Red Rover |
| Laid down: | date unknown |
| Launched: | in 1859 at Cape Girardeau, Missouri |
| Acquired: | 30 September 1862 |
| Commissioned: | circa 26 October 1862 |
| Decommissioned: |
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| Struck: | 1865 (est.) |
| Homeport: | Mound City, Illinois |
| Captured: |
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| Fate: | sold, 29 November 1865 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steamer / Hospital ship |
| Displacement: | 650 long tons (660 t) |
| Length: | 256 ft (78 m) |
| Beam: | Unknown |
| Draught: | 8 ft (2.4 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 8 kn (9.2 mph; 15 km/h) |
| Complement: |
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| Armament: | 1 × 32-pounder gun |
USS Red Rover (1861) was a 650-ton Confederate States of America steamer that the United States Navy captured. After refitting the vessel, the Union used it as a hospital ship during the American Civil War.
Red Rover became the U.S. Navy’s first hospital ship, serving the Mississippi Squadron until the end of the American Civil War. Her medical complement included nurses from the Catholic order Sisters of the Holy Cross, the first female nurses to serve on board a Navy ship. In addition to caring for and transporting sick and wounded men, she provided medical supplies to Navy ships along the Western Rivers.
Red Rover was a side-wheel steamer built in 1859 at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The Confederacy purchased her on 7 November 1861, and initially put her to use as a barracks ship for the floating battery at New Orleans, Louisiana. Serving from 15 March 1862, at Island No. 10, near New Madrid, Missouri, she was holed by Union fire during a bombardment of that island sometime before 25 March, leading the Confederates to abandon her as a barracks ship.
When the island fell to Union forces on 7 April, the Union gunboat USS Mound City captured Red Rover. The Union forces repaired her, fitting her out as a summer hospital ship for the Army's Western Flotilla. Her role was to augment the limited Union medical facilities, to minimize the hazards to sick and wounded in fighting ships, and to facilitate delivery of medical supplies to and evacuation of personnel from forward areas.
At the time of Red Rover's commissioning as a hospital ship, the Union was already using steamers such as the City of Memphis as medical transports to carry casualties upriver. However, these transports lacked necessary sanitary accommodations and medical staff, and thus were unable to prevent the spread of disease. Barges, housed over or covered with canvas, were ordered for the care of contagious diseases, primarily smallpox, and were moored in shady spots along the river.
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