"CSS Raleigh; ram or no ram?" Topic

As I'm finishing up my preparations for my game of Smoke On The Water at the CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretative Center I stumbled across contradictory information on the CSS Raleigh. One account says it had a ram, another refers to a spar torpedo and a third says it had neither. What is the opinion of the TMP clan out there? Does anybody have any reference sources they can steer me to that I can access in the next 72 hours?

I can't find anything on the Raleigh having "melee" attacks at all, short of it being classed as an "iron ram".

According to Donald Canney, whom I accord the highest level of respect, the Raleigh is merely one of six Porter-designed rams of the Richmond class. There are no significant differences from her sisters. That would mean it definitely had a ram.

My belief is that torpedoes were likely added locally, and it is quite possible that some of the Richmonds did not have torpedoes

Just for the record, according to Canney, the Raleigh did have 24 marines in addition to its 197-man crew. So, melee was not likely, but not impossible.

My source is Donald Canney's The Confederate Steam Navy, published in 2015.

Source: Paul H. Silverstone, "Warships of the Civil War Navies" (Annapolis, Maryland: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1989) pp. 205-206.

According to Silverstone, equipment shortages and worker strikes led to the six ironclads of the "Richmond" class varying in armament and engine-power, but all are described as ironclad rams. Only the "Richmond" is credited with a spar torpedo. The "Raleigh" is credited with a gun armament of four 6-inch rifles. With a design speed of only six knots, the idea of successfully ramming anything but a pure sailing ship or stationary target would have been pretty optimistic!

Canney credits Raleigh with four 7 inch rifles, rather than the 6.4 inch guns.

Raleigh also had superior engines to many of her sisters-Richmond, Chicora, Palmetto State and North Carolina. Like its other sister Savannah, it had a purpose built-2 cylinder engine. The other Richmonds swiped engines from other vessels, that left the heavy ironclads underpowered, with speed estimated at less than five knots. Speed for Raleigh is not clear, but likely more than five knots. Raleigh's sister, North Carolina, was so poorly engined it became a floating battery.

If you're doing a lot of ACW Naval gaming, I encourage you to get a copy of this book. It provides a narrative for each ship in the Confederate Navy. Difficult to do because record keeping was spotty. It's a follow on to Canney's Old Steam Navy from 1993 that covers the Union fleet and is superb. The book is hardcover and available from Amazon for $27.94 USD. It simply has more to offer than Silverstone.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I have Silverstone's book but am always looking for more. I'm going to snip off the spar torpedo and class her as a ram.

Ram but, no spar would be the way to go. I have only the Richmond with a spar.

I'm not sure why you think the spar torpedo HAS to go. A ship of this period can easily have both and the spar torpedo can be added locally. It's a throwaway weapon of a sort.

Dn Johnson: the Spar doesn't really have to go but as I'm putting this on at a museum dedicated to an ironclad I need to careful on what liberties I take.with the star of the show so to speak. The documents I could find on the Raleigh gave no indication of a spar torpedo. Only Silverstone's discription of the Richmond class indicates a Spar. I did find a reference to the Richmond having a spar torpedo fitted after launch but none of the other ships in the class. So unless I come across something else before Saturday I'll play it conservative at the museum. As I do have two models of that class, I will keep the spar on the second model so in the future I can game either way. 😉

Understandable. It's been years since I did research on Ironclads, I loved them when I was a kid, but I recall that almost all of the CS ships had them put on as the war progressed. It's a highly effective, and easy to provide, addition to the ram.