Confederate Ironclad Seen on Cape Fear River This Date

MARCH 5, 1863

Captain Sands, USS Dacotah, reported the appearance at New Inlet, on the Cape Fear River, of a Confederate ironclad.  "I would feel somewhat more at ease," he wrote Rear Admiral S.P. Lee, "if we had an ironclad at each of these main inlets to Cape Fear River, to fend off an attack upon wooden vessels by the Confederate ram, although, without such aid, we will do our best to prevent its success. 

But, without some assistance the blockade may be at any time broken by even this single yet formidable ram.  Sands later reported that the ram had had to return inside the Cape Fear River "because she could not stand to sea."

Was it the CSS North Carolina or the CSS Raleigh?  --Old B-R'er