Confederate Midshipmen at the Confederacy's End

APRIL 3, 1865:  Fifty of the sixty midshipmen at the Confederate Naval Academy, under the command of Lt. William H. Parker, escorted the archives of the government and the specie and bullion of the treasury from Richmond to Danville.

There, Midshipman Raphael Semmes, Junior, was detached from the escort corps and detailed to the staff of his father.

The Midshipmen Corps continued to be entrusted with the select guard duty during subsequent moves of the archives and treasury to Charlotte, N.C.; Washington, Ga.; Augusta, Ga.; and finally to Abbeville, S.C..

The ten midshipmen who remained in Richmond under the command of Lt. James W. Billups, CSN, fired and scuttled the CSS Patrick Henry, schoolship of the Naval Academy.

--Old B-Runner