CSS[Note 1] Richmond was the name ship of her class of six casemate ironclads built for the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.

The ship was built to a design by the Chief Naval Constructor, John L. Porter, based on his earlier work on the ironclad CSS Virginia, retaining the traditional curving ship-type hull, but with flat ends to the casemate.

Richmond's single-cylinder, 80-horsepower direct-acting steam engine had been stored in the Gosport Navy Yard when the brig Arctic 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, 9-foot (2.7 m) propeller.

The ironclad was thus finished at Richmond, Virginia, in July 1862 and placed in commission by Commander Robert B. Pegram, as part of the James River Squadron.

On January 23–24, 1865, she was under heavy fire while aground with Virginia II above the obstructions at Trent's Reach — at an angle that caused Federal projectiles to ricochet harmlessly off their casemates.

A few weeks later, however, Richmond had to be destroyed to avoid capture by order of Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes, squadron commander, prior to the evacuation of the Confederate capital on April 3.