USS Red Rover
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (September 2017) |
USS Red Rover
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History | |
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United States | |
Name | USS Red Rover |
Launched | 1859 |
Acquired | 30 September 1862 |
Commissioned | circa 26 October 1862 |
Decommissioned | 17 November 1865 |
Captured | circa 25 March 1862 |
Fate | Sold, 29 November 1865 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Steamer / Hospital ship |
Displacement | 650 long tons (660 t) |
Length | 256 ft (78 m) |
Draft | 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 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
Service under the Confederacy
Red Rover was a side-wheel steamer built in 1859 at
Captured by the Union Army
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.
Civil War care of the sick and wounded
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.
Rapid mobilization at the start of the Civil War had vitiated efforts to prevent the outbreak and epidemic communication of disease on both sides of the conflict.
Conversion to hospital ship
Red Rover, serving first with the
Civil War service
Mound City hospital service
On 10 June 1862, Red Rover was ready for service. Her commanding officer was Captain McDaniel of the Army's Gunboat Service. Assistant Surgeon George H. Bixby became Surgeon in Charge.
On 11 June, Red Rover received her first patient, a cholera victim and American Union seaman from the gunboat
Vicksburg, Mississippi, hospital service
From Mound City, Illinois, the hospital ship moved down-stream again and joined the Western Flotilla above Vicksburg, Mississippi. Through the summer, she treated the flotilla's sick and wounded while the Ram Fleet engaged at Vicksburg and along the Mississippi River to Helena, Arkansas. While off Helena, Red Rover caught fire, but — with assistance from the gunboat Benton — she extinguished the blaze and continued her work.
In September 1862, Red Rover — still legally under the jurisdiction of an Illinois
In December Red Rover, used during the fall to alleviate crowded medical facilities ashore, was ready for service on the river. On the 26th, she was commissioned under the command of
In December 1862, Fleet Surg. Ninian A. Pinckney relieved Fleet Surg. Gilchrist. Pinckney imposed such strict standards on the department's day-to-day activities and ran them so well run from his headquarters in Red Rover that by 1865, he was able to claim
there is less ... sickness in the Fleet than in the healthiest portion of the globe.
Supporting the White River expedition
On the 29th, Red Rover headed downstream. During January 1863, she served with the expedition up the
From February to the
Red Rover continued her service along the river, taking on sick and wounded and delivering medicine and supplies until the fall of 1864. In October of that year, she began her last supply run. After delivering medical stores to ships at Helena and on the White, Red, and Yazoo Rivers, she transferred patients to Hospital Pinckney at Memphis and headed north.
Post-war decommissioning
Arriving at Mound City on 11 December, she remained there, caring for Navy patients, until she was decommissioned on 17 November 1865. Having admitted over 2,400 patients during her career, she transferred her last 11 to Grampus on that date. On 29 November, she was sold at public auction to A. M. Carpenter.
Legacy
When accessioned recruits to the United States Navy arrive at Recruit Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois, the first Branch Medical Clinic they visit is named BMC Red Rover. It is there that recruits get their first inoculations, immunizations, optometry screenings, female examinations, and dental screenings.
See also
References
- ^ "Historic Highlights of U.S. Navy Hospital Ships". United States Navy Military Sealift Command FactSheet. U.S. Navy.
- ^ Bob Piddy (1982). Across Our Wide Missouri: Volume I, January through June. Independence, MO: Independence Press. pp. 337–339.
- ^ "Ann Bradford Stokes: From Slavery to Civil War Naval Nurse". Maria Smilios. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
- ^ Slawson, Robert (2011-01-27). "Ann Bradford Stokes (1830-1903)". Black Past. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.