Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Naval Happenings 150 Years Ago: May 16th to 18th,1863

MAY 16TH

Commander Bulloch wrote Secretary Mallory from London that the French shipbuilders would not, as had been thought, build ships for the Confederacy on credit and insisted on cotton certificates.

Four  blockade-runners captured, two off Florida and two off South Carolina.


MAY 17TH

Four more blockade-runners captured of destroyed: two in Gulf of Mexico, one off South Carolina and one off Virginia,


MAY 18TH

Joint Army-Navy operation against Confederate works to the rear of Vicksburg, capturing Snyder's Bluff and causing Haynes' Bluff to be evacuated.  Porter then moved his gunboats into position and began shelling Vicksburg's hill batteries day and night.

Three more blockade-runners captured or destroyed.

The USS Shepherd Knapp, ran aground on a reef at Cape Haitien, West Indies and could not get off.  It was stripped of all usable stores, provisions and instruments before being abandoned.

Old B-Runner

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