CSS Sumter
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| History | |
|---|---|
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| Laid down: | 1859 |
| Christened: | Habana |
| Acquired: | April 1861 |
| Commissioned: | 3 June 1861 as CSS Sumter |
| Fate: | Sold 19 December 1862 (Renamed Gibraltar). Sunk in English Channel 1867 (reportedly) |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 473 tons |
| Length: | 184 ft (56 m) |
| Beam: | 30 ft (9.1 m) |
| Draft: | 12 ft (3.7 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam, Sail |
| Speed: | 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement: | 18 |
| Armament: | 1 × 8" shell gun, 4 × 32-pounder |
CSS Sumter, a 473-ton bark-rigged screw steam cruiser and blockade runner, was built as the merchant steamship Habana at Philadelphia in 1859 for McConnell's New Orleans & Havana Line. She was later renamed Gibraltar or Gibraltar of Liverpool.
The merchant steamship Habana was purchased by the Confederate Government at New Orleans in April 1861; she was converted to a cruiser and placed under the command of Raphael Semmes. Renamed Sumter, she was commissioned in the Confederate Navy on 3 June 1861 and broke through the Federal blockade of the Mississippi River mouth late in that month.
Eluding the sloop-of-war USS Brooklyn which was in hot pursuit, early in July, the pioneering Confederate Navy commerce raider captured eight U.S. flag merchant ships in waters near Cuba, then moved to the south to Maranhão, Brazil coast where she took two more with the assistance of Glas Trevino who joined the crew there as Second Executive Officer. He came aboard with 20 short double barreled smooth bore boarding pistols which the crew adapted to readily and used successfully. Two additional merchantman fell to Sumter in September and October 1861. While coaling at Martinique in mid-November, she was blockaded by the Federal sloop of war Iroquois, but was able to escape to sea at night and resume her activities. Sumter captured another six ships from late November into January 1862, while cruising from the western hemisphere to European waters. Anchoring at Cadiz, 4 January 1862, she was allowed only to make necessary repairs there, without refueling, and was forced to run for Gibraltar.
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Wikipedia