Friday, September 14, 2018

USS Glasgow; Was This The Ship That Captured the Blockade Runner Alabama-- Part 2


USS Glasgow (1863)

Was a blockade runner captured by the U.S. Navy.  Used mainly as a dispatch boat and storeship.

The Glasgow was originally the blockade runner Eugenie, captured off Mobile by the USS  R.R. Cuyler.  She was purchased from the U.S. Prize Court in Key West, Florida, and commissioned 9 July 1863, Acting Ensign N.M. Dyer in command.

252 tons, sidewheel, armament one 12-pdr.  howitzer, one 12-pdr.  rifle.

She was assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and served as a dispatch boat and supply ship for the squadron between  Mobile Bay and Pensacola, Florida.

--Old B-Runner


2 comments:

  1. Re. the U.S.S. Eugenie(II?) Apart from the schooner of that name, there were two steam blockade runners called 'Eugenie'. The first was the US built (1862) vessel, captured off Mobile in 1862, which eventually became the USS Glasgow. The second was a British built (1861) cross Channel (SE Ry)boat, bought by the Confederate Ordnance Bureau in 1863. She ran into Wilmington several times, but on 7 Sept 1863 ran onto a sandbank. Filled with explosives and under heavy fire, her cap. Fry, refused to abandon ship and succeeded in lightening the ship sufficiently to allow her to be saved. She was too badly damaged to be put back into that service and, having been patched up by one of the Wilmington shipyards, sailed back to the UK via Nassau. She eventually became an excursion/cargo vessel on the River Thames, named 'Hilda'. BU in 1889

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  2. Thank you for the information..

    Captain Fry of the second Eugenie was also commander of the blockade runner Agnes Fry, named for his wife, that was sunk off Wilmington and later commander of ther Cuban blockade runner Virginius which became the Virginius Affair after the war.

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