CSS Richmond was the name ship of her class of six casemate ironclads built for the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Completed during 1862 the ship was assigned to the James River Squadron where she mostly supported Confederate forces near Richmond, Virginia. She was burned in April 1865 to prevent her capture by Union forces. Background and description The ship was built to a design by the Chief Naval Constructor, John L. Porter, based on his earlier work on the ironclad , retaining the traditional curving ship-type hull, but with flat ends to the casemate. As usual for Confederate ships, dimensions vary slightly between sources. The plan showed an overall length of and a length between perpendiculars of with a maximum beam of , a moulded beam of and a depth of hold of about . The consensus figure for the ship's draft is She was fitted with a pilothouse at the forward end of the casemate roof. The propulsion systems of the Richmond-class ironclads were different for each of the ships, often depending on what could be sourced locally. Richmonds single-cylinder, 80-horsepower direct-acting steam engine had been stored in the Gosport Navy Yard when the brig was converted to a lightship in 1859. Seized when the Confederates captured the Navy Yard, the engine used steam provided by a pair of horizontal fire-tube boilers built by either the Tredegar Iron Works or the Shockoe Foundry in Richmond to drive a three-bladed, propeller. The boilers were tall, long, and wide. Richmond had a speed of and a crew of 150. She also carried about 20 to 25 Confederate States Marines in case of a battle that required naval boarding. Richmond was armed with four Brooke rifles, one of which was two banded (reinforced at the breech) and the others were single-banded guns. Two of the guns were on pivot mounts at the bow and stern and the others were positioned on each broadside. The ship was also equipped with a spar torpedo at her bow. Other sources concur with the total of four guns, but state that they consisted of one 7-inch Brooke rifle in the bow, two Brooke rifles on the broadsides, and a muzzle-loading smoothbore gun on a pivot mounting in the stern. Naval historian Raimondo Luraghi states that the ship was armed with four 7-inch Brooke rifles and two smoothbores, while official historian Paul Marcello