Ceres was a blockade runner of the American Civil War. After Ceres was abandoned near the mouth of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina in December 1863, U.S. Navy officers searched the burning ship and found documents belonging to C. A. L. Lamar that revealed several important details about the business of blockade running.
Ceres had been built in Britain and had an iron propeller. [1] The steamer of 300 tons burden was captured by the U.S. Navy off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina on December 6, 1863, while inbound for a Confederate States port. [2] She had sailed from Bermuda. [1] Vesta, wrecked on a North Carolina inlet in January 1864, was described as a "fine-looking double-propeller" ship that was nearly identical to Ceres. [3]
According to the after-action reports, Ceres "got aground on the Smith's Island side at the edge of the shoal bank S. W. by S. of Bald Head light-house. At daybreak boats were dispatched to her," namely USS Aries and USS Violet. [1]
According to a message from acting naval ensigns James A. Brannan and George M. Smith, "In obedience to your orders we boarded a vessel which was aground and on fire off Bald Head light-house. When we got on board we set the men at work with fire buckets to try and quench the flames, but our efforts were unavailing, the fire gaining on us, then entered the cabin, broke open a bureau in the captain's stateroom, and found several letters, together with some papers; also a sextant. By this time the rebel batteries had opened fire on us, and we deemed it prudent to shove off from her. Arriving on board this vessel, all the papers were delivered to you." [4]
U.S. Navy admiral Samuel Phillips Lee (cousin of Robert E. Lee, as it happens) wrote that Commander John Jay Almy of the USS Connecticut had reported that "Mr. Brannan has charge of all the papers found on board, among which are letters in relation to Messrs. Hartstene, Maffitt, and Fry, formerly in our naval service (no particular given); also mercantile letters from one Frank Smith at Bermuda implicating parties in New York as engaged in negotiations to purchase on rebel account the R. E. Lee and Cornubia (prize steamers) when offered for sale. The package, also, I am informed, contains an important letter from Judge P. Pecquet, from Paris, October 16, and another letter from N. C. Trowbridge, of New York, October 9; also a letterbook belonging to Colonel Lamar, from which it appears that Maffitt had visited Sweden to purchase a vessel. Commander Almy thinks Colonel Lamar was a passenger on board the Ceres." [5] Almy was correct. Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar was a Georgia slave trader who had been a leading figure in organizing the illegal transatlantic slave ship Wanderer in 1858, and who had since transitioned to blockade running with the support of longtime business partner N. C. Trowbridge, as well as periodically dabbling in Confederate States Army service. Lamar, L. G. Bowers, and Lamar's cousin Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, the Confederate ambassador to Russia, had sailed from Liverpool in November 1864, transferring at Bermuda for the final leg of the trip on board the Ceres. [6]
Admiral Lee, writing to U. S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles from aboard the flagship USS Minnesota on December 18, 1863, divided the captured intelligence into five groups: [7]
Secretary Welles mentioned the tranche of correspondence from the Ceres in his diary entry of December 21. The letters triggered a cabinet meeting with Edwin Stanton, William Seward, and Salmon P. Chase. At least one letter was in cipher and had been partially decoded; there was an implication that Confederates were planning to capture some of the "California steamers" for use as blockade runners. Welles ordered the arrest of New Yorker N. C. Trowbridge and "and hold him in close custody, and to Admiral Paulding to place a gunboat in the Narrows and at Throg's Neck to stop all outward-bound steamers that have not a pass." [8] Trowbridge was indeed arrested and shortly convicted on charges of treason; he was sentenced to 10 years hard labor. [9]
In 1886 an unsigned article appeared in the North American Review that examined a letter book belonging to Charles Lamar. The article began with the following explanation: "It was my fortune, during my summer's vacation, to rescue from the obliterating maw of a New England paper-mill, a letterpress copy-book, containing impressions of a series of remarkable letters, written by a prominent 'Southern gentleman' of 'the days before the war.' Happening to glance over the contents of the book, I saw it had once been the property of Mr. C. A. L. Lamar, of Savannah, Georgia, a cousin, I believe, of Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, our present United States Secretary of the Interior. It must have been confiscated during 'Sherman's march to the sea,' and brought North. It fell, I suppose, into unappreciative hands, or else it would have been utilized before this time, and not so carelessly doomed to destruction." [10]
This article became the basis for years of scholarship on the illegal transatlantic slave ship the Wanderer and the antebellum interregional American slave trade. This 1881 article, unsigned, was controversial. Was it an elaborate political attack on the Grover Cleveland administration? Was the "paper mill" story believable? Where was this purported book? Scholarly debate continued for decades, with no end in sight, until in 2009 when a New Jersey woman clearing out her home contacted scholars about three trunks of Lamar family documents in her possession. There, wrote historian Jim Jordan, "Toward the close of the second day of my visit, bleary-eyed from sifting through so many documents, I opened a volume about nine by eleven inches, almost an inch thick, with a black cover and red binding, and saw that it contained copies of letters. I read one and got a feeling of déjà vu—I had seen it before. The correspondence bore the signature of C. A. L. Lamar. Another letter also sounded familiar and was signed by Charles Lamar. Then I realized that these were verbatim from the article in the North American Review. The book that I held was the actual 'Slave-Trader's Letter-Book,' not seen by anyone for perhaps 125 years. The article was not a fraud." Jordan concluded that the paper mill story was in fact a ruse but while in fact the writer came into possession of the book when "either the Treasury or War Department" had possession of a large number of confiscated papers that had belonged to Fire-Eater Gazaway Bugg Lamar, secessionist, businessman, and father of C. A. L. Lamar, papers that eventually ended up in the possession of heirs who lived in New Jersey. [11]
It remains unclear if the C. A. L. Lamar letterbook that was taken from the burning blockade runner Ceres in 1863 is the same C. A. L. Lamar letterbook reported in the North American Review in 1886 and rediscovered in New Jersey in 2009.
The first USS Sonoma was a sidewheel gunboat that served in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. She was named for Sonoma Creek in northern California, Sonoma County, California, and the town of Sonoma, California, that in turn were named for one of the chiefs of the Chocuyen Indians of that region.
CSS Florida was a sloop-of-war in the service of the Confederate States Navy. She served as a commerce raider during the American Civil War before being sunk in 1864.
John Newland Maffitt was an officer in the Confederate States Navy who was nicknamed the "Prince of Privateers" due to his success as a blockade runner and commerce raider in the U.S. Civil War.
CSSOwl was a blockade runner in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. It was built by Jones Quiggen, a ship builder in Liverpool, England and launched on June 21, 1864.
USS Ceres was a small 150-long-ton (152 t) steamboat acquired by the Union Navy during the beginning of the American Civil War. She was outfitted as a gunboat and used in the Union blockade of the waterways of the Confederate States of America.
CSS Robert E. Lee was a fast paddle-steamer, originally built as a Glasgow-Belfast packet boat named Giraffe, which was bought as a blockade runner for the Confederate States during the American Civil War, then subsequently served in the United States Navy as USS Fort Donelson and in the Chilean Navy as Concepción.
USS Fort Jackson was a wooden sidewheel steamer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. She was successful in enforcing the Union blockade of Confederate ports, capturing five ships carrying contraband. She participated in the battles for Fort Fisher, which effectively closed the port of Wilmington, North Carolina to the Confederacy. Most notably, the surrender of Confederate forces in Texas was signed aboard the ship, formally ending the Civil War in that portion of the country.
USS Stars and Stripes was a 407-ton steamer acquired by the U.S. Navy and put to use by the Union during the American Civil War.
USS Commodore Perry was a 512-long-ton (520-tonne) steamer acquired by the Union Navy in 1861, the first year of the American Civil War. She was named after Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry (1785–1819), a naval officer who had commanded American forces on Lake Erie in the War of 1812. In January–February 1862, Commodore Perry was part of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, taking part in the attack, in cooperation with the Union Army, which resulted in the surrender of Roanoke Island by the Confederate States of America. She participated in several other campaigns through 1862, including the capture of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and army–navy expeditions against Franklin, Virginia, and Hertford, North Carolina. From 1863 until the end of the war, she was engaged in patrols, both inland and in Virginia coastal waters.
USSWhitehead, a screw steamer built in 1861 at New Brunswick, New Jersey, served as a gunboat in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
USS Crusader was a screw steamer of the United States Navy that served prior to, and during, the American Civil War.
Joseph Nicholson Barney was a career United States Navy officer (1835–1861) who served in the Confederate States Navy in the American Civil War (1861–1865).
USS Aries was an 820-ton iron screw steamer built at Sunderland, England, during 1861–1862, intended for employment as a blockade runner during the American Civil War. She was captured by Union Navy forces during the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America, and was commissioned as a Union gunboat. Aries was named for the constellation.
USS Grand Gulf was a wooden-hulled, propeller-driven steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was effective in performing blockade duty, and captured a number of Confederate blockade runners.
USS General Putnam – also known as the USS William G. Putnam – was acquired by the Union Navy during the first year of the American Civil War and outfitted as a gunboat and assigned to the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America. She also served as a tugboat and as a ship's tender when so required.
USS Underwriter was a 341-ton sidewheel steamer that was purchased for military use by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
USS Bazely was a steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy in a tugboat/patrol boat role in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways.
USS Violet was a 166-ton steamer acquired by the U.S. Navy for use during the American Civil War.
During the American Civil War, blockade runners were used to get supplies through the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America that extended some 3,500 miles (5,600 km) along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines and the lower Mississippi River. The Confederacy had little industrial capability and could not produce the quantity of arms and other supplies needed to fight against the Union. To meet this need, British investors financed numerous blockade runners that were constructed in the British Isles and were used to import the guns, ordnance and other supplies, in exchange for cotton that the British textile industry needed greatly. To penetrate the blockade, these relatively lightweight shallow draft ships, mostly built in British shipyards and specially designed for speed, but not suited for transporting large quantities of cotton, had to cruise undetected, usually at night, through the Union blockade. The typical blockade runners were privately owned vessels often operating with a letter of marque issued by the Confederate government. If spotted, the blockade runners would attempt to outmaneuver or simply outrun any Union Navy warships on blockade patrol, often successfully.
Nelson Clement Trowbridge, usually doing business as N. C. Trowbridge, was an American businessman who worked as both a merchant and farmer in Poughkeepsie, New York, and a slave trader in the Deep South for approximately 25 years prior to the American Civil War. Trowbridge trafficked in slaves in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Louisiana. He also became a plantation owner in Mississippi. He was party to the illegal importation of slaves from Africa on the Wanderer in 1857. Many of the letters written by C. A. L. Lamar about his illegal transatlantic slave trade enterprise of the late 1850s were addressed to Trowbridge ("Trow") in New Orleans. Lamar and Trowbridge, who had had several businesses together, from breeding racehorses to mining for gold, were responsible for at least one blockade-runner, the Ceres, during the American Civil War. Trowbridge was arrested on treason charges twice during the war, and convicted in 1864 of treason and blockade running. The New York Herald and other newspapers deemed him a New York-based Confederate spy and business agent. He seems to have lived in New York City and Mississippi after the war. He died in Mississippi in 1879 and is buried in Augusta, Georgia.