Rear Admiral Richmond P. Hobson Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

Richmond Pearson Hobson (1870-1937), who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1933 for sinking the collier Merrimac in 1898, was promoted to Rear Admiral by Act of Congress in 1934. Hobson had graduated at the head of his class at the United States Naval Academy in 1889 and worked primarily at Annapolis, in navy yards and as a naval constructor, in which capacity he served aboard Rear Admiral William T. Sampson's flagship during the Spanish-American War and carried out his exploit to bottle up the Spanish fleet in Santiago. Hobson later served as a Democratic U.S. Congressman from Alabama (1907-1915), and he was also the author of such novels as Buck Jones at Annapolis (1907), which was based upon his own experiences at the U.S. Naval Academy.