RODERICK PRENTISS, LT, USN

Roderick Prentiss '59

Date of birth: 1840

Age: ~24

Naval Academy Register

Roderick Prentiss was admitted to the Naval Academy from Indiana on September 21, 1854 at age 14 years 1 months.

Loss

Roderick died on August 6, 1864 of wounds suffered the day before at the Battle of Mobile Bay while aboard USS Monongahela (1862).

Other Information

From Find A Grave:

Roderick Prentiss, a son of Judge William S. Prentiss, at the age of fourteen years received an appointment through the aid of Judge Chamberlain to the Naval School at Annapolis, where he received a thorough education, and subsequently accepted service in the U. S. Navy, and while gallantly serving as executive officer of the sloop of war USS Monongahela (1862) in an engagement during the war of the rebellion, August 5, 1864, he was terribly wounded by both legs being shot to pieces, and died the following day. His remains rest near Pensacola, where a stone, erected by his brother officers, marks his grave. Thus upon the threshold of a brilliant career, at the age of twenty four years, a brave officer and a noble gentleman was ruthlessly slain in a ruthless war.

From Orbis Cascade Alliance:

Roderick Prentiss, born in 1840, received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in 1854. He graduated in 1859 and received his commission as a midshipman, first serving on the USS San Jacinto and USS Portsmouth on a cruise to Portugal and Africa. Roderick was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in August 1861 and was assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron on board the USS Crusader. His last assignment was on board the USS Monongahela and during the battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864 he was fatally wounded when that ship engaged the Confederate ironclad CSS Tennessee. Roderick died the next day and was buried at Pensacola, Florida.

(The above archive has many letters, diaries, and journals written by Roderick.)

He was survived by his wife, Caroline, to whom he was married on September 2, 1863.

He is listed on the killed in action panel in the front of Memorial Hall and in the Register of Alumni, though the latter has no date associated with this action.

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Acting Midshipman, 21 September, 1854. Midshipman, 9 June, 1859. Lieutenant, 31 August, 1861. Died from wounds, 6 August, 1864.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.