USS Banshee (1862)

For other ships with the same name, see USS Banshee.

USS Banshee (1864-1865) Built in 1862, this steamer was the blockade runner Banshee until captured on November 21, 1863.
History
United States
NameUSS Banshee
Launched1862
Acquired12 March 1864
Commissioned14 June 1864
Decommissioned1865
Captured
Fatesold November 30, 1865
General characteristics
Displacement273 tons
Length210 ft 4 in (64.11 m)
Beam34 ft 6 in (10.52 m)
Draft20 ft 6 in (6.25 m)
Propulsion
Speed11.5 knots (21.3 km/h; 13.2 mph)
Range3,000 miles
Capacity533 tons
Armament
  • one 100-pounder gun
  • two 30-pounder guns
Armor0.12 in (3 mm) steel plating

USS Banshee was a large steamship "blockade runner" that was captured by the Union Navy and converted to Navy use during the American Civil War.

Service history

Banshee, a 533-ton (burden) side-wheel steamship, was built in Liverpool, England, in 1862 for employment running the Federal blockade of the Confederate coast. Her transatlantic maiden voyage, in April 1863, was a "first" for a steel-hulled ship, though her innovative construction proved troublesome in service. During the next seven months, Banshee was very successful in her intended trade, making seven round-trip voyages between Bermuda or the Bahamas and Wilmington, North Carolina. Future New York shipping magnate F.W.J. Hurst was second in command of the ship on these runs.[1] She was captured by USS Grand Gulf (1863) and the U.S. Army Transport Fulton on November 21, 1863, while en route to Wilmington.

Sent North for adjudication by the New York Prize Court, she was purchased in March 1864 by the U.S. Navy, which converted her to a gunboat and, in June 1864, placed her in commission as USS Banshee. The steamer served for the rest of the year with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. In December she took part in the abortive attempt to capture Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Banshee was reassigned to the Potomac Flotilla in mid-January 1865 and spent the rest of the Civil War operating on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Decommissioned after the fighting ended, Banshee was sold in November 1865. Her new owners placed her in commercial service under the name T.L. Smallwood (or J.L. Smallwood). Sold to British interests in 1867, she was renamed Irene and remained in use at least until the 1890s.

References

  1. ^ Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, "From Pinafores to Politics," (Henry Holt & Co., 1923) ASIN B00085GSYO (available in the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, Library of Congress and accessed July 31, 2010).