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Css Rappahannock | align="center" colspan="2"| | | lign ="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|Career | align ="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|Confederate Navy Jack | | rdered: | | | aid down: | | | aunched: | 1857 | | ommissioned: | November 1864 | | ecommissioned: | April 1865 | | ate: | Turned over to United States | | olspan="2" align="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|General Characteristics | | isplacement: | 857 tons | | ength: | 200 feet | | eam: | 30 Feet 2 inches | | raught: | | | ropulsion: | 2 steam engines | | peed: | | | ange: | | | omplement: | | | rmament: | | | otto: | CSS 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 November 24, with workmen still on board and only a token crew. Her Confederate Naval officers joined in the English Channel. When he bought her from the Admiralty through his secret agent on November 14, Commander Matthew F. Maury had intended Rappahannock to replace unwanted, iron CSS Georgia and was about to transfer Georgia's battery to her. She was ideal for a cruiserwooden hull, bark-rigged, two engines and a lifting screw propellerbut 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 Lieutenant 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. Rappahannock
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