Catesby ap Roger Jones


Catesby ap Roger Jones was an officer in the U.S. Navy who became a commander in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. He assumed command of during the Battle of Hampton Roads and engaged in the historic first battle of the two ironclads.

Biography

Jones was born in Clarke County, Virginia, son of Major General Roger ap Catesby Jones and Mary Ann Mason. His mother was a lineal descendant of William Byrd II of Westover and Robert "King" Carter, making her also a cousin of General Robert E. Lee. His uncle was Thomas ap Catesby Jones, a naval officer during the War of 1812 and Mexican–American War. Jones was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy in 1836, and served extensively at sea, receiving promotion to the rank of lieutenant in 1849. During the 1850s, Jones was involved in development work on navy weapons and served as ordnance officer on the new steam frigate when she began active service in 1856.
When Virginia left the Union in April 1861, Lieutenant Jones resigned his U.S. Navy commission, joining the Virginia State Navy soon thereafter and becoming a Confederate Navy lieutenant in June. In 1861–62, he was employed in converting the steam frigate USS Merrimack into an ironclad and was the ship's executive officer when she was commissioned as. During the Battle of Hampton Roads, when her commanding officer, Captain Franklin Buchanan, was wounded in the March 8, 1862 attack on and, Jones temporarily took command, leading the ship during her historic engagement with on the following day. Later in 1862, he commanded a shore battery at Drewry's Bluff, on the James River, and the gunboat while she was under construction at Saffold, Georgia.
For his "gallant and meritorious conduct" during the battles of Hampton Roads and Drewry's Bluff, Jones was promoted to the rank of commander on April 29, 1863. Jones was sent to Selma, Alabama, to take charge of the Ordnance Works there. For the rest of the Civil War, he supervised the manufacture of badly needed heavy guns for the Confederate armed forces. With the end of the conflict in May 1865, Jones went into private business. After working in South America, he made his residence in Selma, Alabama where, on June 20, 1877, he was shot and killed by another man as a result of a feud between his son and another man's son.
Catesby ap Roger Jones is buried in the historic Old Live Oak Cemetery at Selma, Alabama.