Image ID: 2APE

Naval History and Heritage Command says: USS Red Rover (1862-1865). Tied up astern of USS General Sterling Price, on the Western Rivers during the Civil War. Note derelict machinery in the foreground.

Miller, The Photographic History Of The Civil War, Vol. 1, p243 says: A Ship That Fought The Fever. Grateful, indeed, were the Federal soldiers, in their advance from Cairo down the Mississippi, when this spacious river steamer, with its roomy cabins and wide decks, about which played the cooling breezes of the Mississippi, was added to the fleet. The Confederates were still to be encountered, but a more subtle enemy had already attacked the army. Fever and dysentery had fastened upon the unacclimated Northerners both afloat and ashore, and threatened to kill off more of them than could possibly be done by the men who strove for the possession of the river. When Island No. 10 was abandoned by the Confederates, they sank a gunboat and six transports, which they were compelled to leave behind. General Pope soon had the transports raised and in commission on the Federal side. None of them was more highly prized than the Red River, which we see here converted into the hospital ship of the Mississippi Squadron, commanded by Lieutenant W. R. Wells. Such floating hospitals quickly came into use by both the army and the navy along the Mississippi, Out on the bosom of the river the fever-stricken men on the shady decks grasped that chance of life which could have been denied them tossing in tents on shore, where the beating sun by day and the miasma from the bottom-lands by night, coupled with imperfect drainage, made recovery almost impossible.