CSS Sumter, converted from the 1859-built merchant steamer Habana, was the first steam cruiser of the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. She operated as a commerce raider in the Caribbean and in the Atlantic Ocean against Union merchant shipping between July and December 1861, taking eighteen prizes, but was trapped in Gibraltar by Union Navy warships. Decommissioned, she was sold in 1862 to the British office of a Confederate merchant and renamed Gibraltar, successfully running the Union blockade in 1863 and surviving the war.
Construction and merchant service before the American Civil War
The wood-hulled merchant steamship Habana was built in 1859 at the Philadelphia shipyard of Birely & Lynn for Captain James McConnell's New Orleans & Havana Steam Navigation Co. She was powered by a 400-horsepower steam engine made by Neafie, Levy & Co, also of Philadelphia, driving a single propeller and was also rigged for sail, generally described as bark rigged. She was variously reported to measure 499 or 520 gross registered tons, with a length overall of , beam of and a draft of . Habana was launched on 18 May 1859, performed well on trials and was considered a fast ship in subsequent mail service out of New Orleans.
Blockade runner Gibraltar
Sumter was disarmed and sold at auction on 19 December 1862 to the Liverpool office of Fraser, Trenholm and Company. Sumters sail plan was changed to a ship rig and she continued her service to the Confederacy under British colors as the blockade runner Gibraltar.
Though her career as a warship had lasted barely six months, Sumter had taken eighteen prizes, of which she burned eight, and released or bonded nine; only one was recaptured. The diversion of Union warships to blockade her had been in itself of significant service to the Confederate cause.
As Gibraltar, she ran at least once into Wilmington, North Carolina, under Capt. E. C. Reid, a Southerner. He sailed from Liverpool on 3 July 1863 with a pair of 22-ton Blakely rifles and other valuable munitions, returning with a full load of cotton. The beginning of this voyage is recorded only because the United States Consul in Liverpool passionately protested Gibraltars being allowed to sail (ostensibly for Nassau), days before formal customs clearance: "She is one of the privileged class and not held down like other vessels to strict rules and made to conform to regulations." The arrival at Wilmington is also a matter of record because of the accidental sinking of the Confederate transport steamer Sumter by Confederate gunners at Fort Moultrie near Charleston in late August 1863. Until November 1863, U.S. naval intelligence understandably confused this ship with the former commerce raider.
The last official report of her appears to have been by the U.S. Consul at Liverpool on 10 July 1864: "The pirate Sumter (called Gibraltar) is laid up at Birkenhead." Gibraltar was sold at auction at Liverpool on orders from the U.S. Consul on 14 June 1866. She was purchased for £1,150 and based in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, employed in the Baltic trade. On 10 February 1867 she sprang a leak whilst on a voyage from Helsingborg, Sweden to Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and foundered on the Dogger Bank on 14 February 1867, with her crew being rescued by a fishing smack.
See also
- Blockade runners of the American Civil War
- Confederate States Navy
- Union Navy
- Bibliography of American Civil War naval history
Notes
References
Sources
- Semmes, Raphael, The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter, Carleton, 1864, Digitized by Digital Scanning Incorporated, 2001, .
- See The Cornhill Magazine, No. 6 (Jul–Dec 1862) pp. 187–205: "The Cruise of the Confederate Ship 'Sumter': [From the Private Journal of an Officer]". A swaggering account, unsigned.
- This article contains public domain material from the Naval History and Heritage Command, entry here.