Blockade-Runner Edith Became the CSS Chickamauga

The blockade-runner Edith became the Confederate raider CSS Chickamauga, which the Union was fearing in September 1864, would make a run along the North's Atlantic Coast and wreak havoc and destruction as the CSS Tallahassee had done earlier.

It was specially commissioned and built in London and purchased by the Confederate government in 1864.

The 585-ton cruiser was constructed as the blockade-runner Edith in London in 1863 and ran the blockade into Wilmington, N.C., where it was purchased and refitted as a warship and commissioned as the CSS Chickamauga under the command of Lt. John Wilkinson, CSN.

It operated as a raider in the Atlantic during October and November 1864, capturing several Union merchant ships before returning to Wilmington where it remained until it was burned to prevent capture 25 February 1865.

--Old B-R'er