Rappahannock
A steam sloop-of-war, was built in the Thames River in 1857 for the British Government and named Victor. Although a handsomely modeled vessel, numerous defects occasioned her sale in 1863. An agent of the Confederate States Government purchased her ostensibly for the China trade, but British authorities suspected she was destined to be a Confederate commerce raider and ordered her detention. Nevertheless, she succeeded in escaping from Sheerness, England, on 24 November, with workmen still on board and only a token crew. Her Confederate Naval officers joined in the Channel.
When he bought her from the Admiralty through his secret agent on 14 November, Comdr. M. F. Maury had intended Rappahannock to replace unwanted, iron Georgia and was about to transfer Georgia's battery to her. She was ideal for a cruiser—wooden hull, bark-rigged, two engines and a lifting screw propeller—but she was doomed to serve the Confederacy no more glamorously than a floating depot.
She was commissioned a Confederate man-of-war underway, but while passing out of the Thames Estuary her bearings burned out and she had to be taken across to Calais for repairs. There Lt. C. M. Fauntleroy, CSN, was placed in command.
Detained on various pretexts by the French Government, Rappahannock never got to sea and was turned over to the United States at the close of the war.
CSS Rappahannock in Civil War photograph of ship in harbor of Calais, France
Glory in the Name: A Novel of the Confederate Navy
From Norfolk to Hampton Roads, from Roanoke Island to the nighttime battle on the river below New Orleans, Glory in the Name tells the story of the Confederate States Navy, and the brave men who carried forward against overwhelming odds
