CSS Nashville
CSS Nashville
Renamed: SS Nashville after being captured after the surrender of Fort Sumter
Builder: William Collyer (Greenpoint, NY)
Launched: 22 September 1853
Christened: SS Nashville
Commissioned: (CSN) Oct 1861 - Mar 1862
Maiden Voyage: 4 January 1854
In Service: 4 January 1854 - 28 February 1863
Renamed: CSS Nashville (1861)
SS Thomas L. Wragg (1862)
SS Rattlesnake (1862)
Fate: Ssunk by USN, 28 February 1863
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Characteristics
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Type: Brig-rigged, side paddle wheel steamer
Displacement: 1,241 tons
Length: 215 ft. 6 in.​
Beam: 34 ft. 6 in.
Draft: 21 ft. 9 in.
Propulsion: Sails and steam engine
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Armament
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2 x 12-pounder cannons
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Battles
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October 21, 1861: Ran the North Atlantic Blockade and headed across the Atlantic to Southampton, England. Was the first ship to fly the Confederate flag in English waters.
November 19, 1861: burned an American merchant ship the Harvey Birch. This was the first such action by a Confederate commerce raider in the North Atlantic.
February 28, 1862: Returned to Beaufort, North Carolina having captured $66,000 during her cruise.
Sold and renamed Thomas L. Wragg as a blockade runner.
November 5, 1862: commissioned as a privateer Rattlesnake.
ran aground on Ogeechee River, Georgia and the monitor USS Montauk destroyed her.
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CSS Nashville. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Nashville_(1953). Accessed 14 January 2026
Current, Richard N., ed. "Nashville." Encyclopedia of the Confederacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. p 1110-1111
Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. p 281, 283, 289, 321,
338-339
Stern, Philip Van Doren. The Confederacy Navy A Pictorial History. New York: Da Capo Press, 1992. p 56, 72-73, 92, 143, 210
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