Signed as Rear Admiral and Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy

(1819-92) Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he was appointed a midshipman in 1833. He saw action in the Seminole War, 1839-42, and participated in the Mexican War at the taking of Vera Cruz, Tobasco, and Tupan. Commissioned commander in October 1861, he served with much distinction on the "Wabash," and as fleet captain of Rear Admiral Samuel F. Dupont at the battle of Port Royal, S.C., and was in command of the naval forces in the trenches at the capture of Fort Pulaski, Ga. He directed the movements of a fleet of gunboats that were engaged in occupying strategic points along the Atlantic coast south of Port Royal, S.C., and he also commanded the expedition to St. Augustine, Fla., and up the St. Mary's River, in March 1862. He was fleet captain in the "New Ironsides," in the attack on Charleston, and in the subsequent operations of the South Atlantic blockading squadron. In the fall of 1863, he was assigned to the command of the steam sloop "Iroquois" in which he was engaged on special service until the end of the war. He was the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, from 1874–78, and again in 1880–81. He retired from the navy in 1881. He had two brothers killed in battle; Lieutenant Alexander Rodgers, 1841 graduate of West Point, who was killed during the attack on Chapultepec, in 1847, during the Mexican War, and Commander George W. Rodgers, who was killed while in the command of the ironclad "Catskill" during the bombardment of Charleston, S.C., in 1863.

Signature with rank, title and date: 5 1/4 x 1 1/8, in ink, Reported 25 Aug. 1875, C.R.P. Rodgers, Rear Admiral Supdt. Very boldly signed.