| History | |
|---|---|
| Name |
|
| Owner |
|
| Operator |
|
| Port of registry |  |
| Route | Holyhead-Kingstown |
| Ordered | January 1847 |
| Builder | Money Wigram, Blackwall Yard |
| Launched | 14 September 1847 |
| Out of service | 1864 |
PS Scotia was a steam paddle passenger vessel that ran between Wales and Ireland from 1847 to 1861, and then became an American Civil War blockade runner. Renamed General Banks, then Fanny and Jenny, she ran agound in February 1864 attempting to reach Wilmington, North Carolina.
In January 1847, the Chester & Holyhead Railway Company ordered four steamers, from four different shipbuilders, to commence an Irish Sea service between Holyhead, Anglesey and Kingstown, near Dublin. [1] Scotia was launched by Money Wigram & Sons at their Blackwall Yard, London on 14 September 1847, and engined by Maudslay, Sons and Field of Lambeth. [2] [3] [4]
From 1858 to 1859 she was loaned to the Scilly Isles Steam Navigation Company until their new ship the Little Western was ready.
She was transferred in 1859 to the London & North Western Railway Company.
At Liverpool in December 1861, she was sold as a blockade runner and she made four runs and on the fifth attempting to reach Charleston she was captured by the Federals on 24 October 1862 at Bull's Bay, South Carolina.
By 23 January 1863, she had been sold and was registered at New York as General Banks. By then end of 1863 she had again been sold a number of times and ended up registered at Nassau as Fanny and Jenny.
She made two more runs against the Blockade but was driven ashore by the USS Florida on Wrightsville Beach, Masonboro Inlet, North Carolina on 10 February 1864. [5]
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the LNWR was the largest joint stock company in the world.
The second USS Florida was a sidewheel steamer in the United States Navy.
Princess Royal was a British merchant ship and blockade runner that became a cruiser in the Union Navy during the American Civil War and later returned to civilian service.
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.
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The Chester and Holyhead Railway was an early railway company conceived to improve transmission of Government dispatches between London and Ireland, as well as ordinary railway objectives. Its construction was hugely expensive, chiefly due to the cost of building the Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Strait. The company had relied on Government support in facilitating the ferry service, and this proved to be uncertain. The company opened its main line throughout in 1850. It relied on the co-operation of other railways to reach London, and in 1859 it was absorbed by the London and North Western Railway.
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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.