December 26th, 1862 USS Red Rover is commissioned Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
The USS Red Rover, the first hospital ship of the U. S. Navy,
was commissioned on December 26th, 1862, after a year of service
in the Army during the Civil War.Â An article in the November
1968 issue of Proceedings, written by W. T. Adams, commemorates
the Red Rover’s brief but successful career, which ended in
1865.Â Not only was the Red Rover the first ship of her kind,
but she also served a variety of capacities for the Union forces
during the War, far beyond the demands of an ordinary hospital
ship. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â To those familiar with modern standards of
naval medical care, it may be difficult to visualize the days
when treatment of the shipboard sick and wounded was limited to
the surgeon working in a makeshift sickbayâ€”with no hope of
better facilities until the ship reached a port which might have
a hospital, days or even weeks into the future.Â It was a
situation that existed in the U. S. Navy, however, until the
chaos of the Civil War