CSS Baltic

Contemporary engraving of the vessel. The accuracy of the image is not known.[1]
History
Confederate States
NameBaltic
Launched1860
CommissionedMay 1862
DecommissionedJuly 1864
CapturedMay 10, 1865
FateSold, December 31, 1865
General characteristics (post-conversion)
TypeCasemate ironclad
Tonnage624
Length186 ft (56.7 m) (o/a)
Beam38 ft (11.6 m)
Draft6 to 7 ft (1.8 to 2.1 m)
Installed power4 × horizontal return-flue boilers
Propulsion2 × steam engines
Speed5 knots (9.3 km/h; 5.8 mph)
Complement86 officers and men
Armament2 × Dahlgren guns, 2 × 32-pounders, 2 × smaller pieces
Armor2.5 in (64 mm)

CSS[a] Baltic was an ironclad warship that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. A towboat before the war, she was purchased by the state of Alabama in December 1861 for conversion into an ironclad. After being transferred to the Confederate Navy in May 1862 as an ironclad, she served on Mobile Bay off the Gulf of Mexico. Baltic's condition in Confederate service was such that naval historian William N. Still Jr. has described her as "a nondescript vessel in many ways".[3] Over the next two years, parts of the ship's wooden structure were affected by wood rot. Her armor was removed to be put onto the ironclad CSS Nashville in 1864. By that August, Baltic had been decommissioned. Near the end of the war, she was taken up the Tombigbee River, where she was captured by Union forces on May 10, 1865. An inspection of Baltic the next month found that her upper hull and deck were rotten and that her boilers were unsafe. She was sold on December 31, and was likely broken up in 1866.

  1. ^ Bisbee 2018, p. 56.
  2. ^ Silverstone 1989, p. xiii.
  3. ^ Still 1985, p. 80.


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