The USS Red Rover was a side wheel steamer built in 1859 at Cape Girardeau, Missouri; purchased by the Confederacy on November 7, 1861, and put to use as a barracks ship for the floating battery at New Orleans, Louisiana, she served at Island No. 10 until she was captured there by the Union gunboat Mound City on April 7, 1862.

Repaired and fitted out as the U. S. Navy’s first hospital ship, the Red Rover’s patients enjoyed luxuries such as elevators, a laundry, an icebox, two kitchens and bathing rooms.

Her medical complement included nurses from the Catholic order of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, the first female nurses to serve on a navy ship and the forerunners of the U. S. Navy Nurse Corps.

During her service Red Rover cared for 2,400 sick and wounded patients, transported and delivered medical supplies where needed and transferred patients to onshore facilities.

The USS Red Rover was decommissioned on November 17, 1865 and sold twelve days later.

Albumen by Unknown Photographer

Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 30184-L