Road Tripping Through Civil War Naval History: From the CSS Owl, to Maffitt to the CSS Diana

This all started earlier this month when I had a blog entry featuring the blockade runner Owl, which had a picture of the ship running through the blockade at Wilmington, N.C..  It was a great picture, and I am currently using it at the top of this blog.  If anyone knows who painted this, please let me know so I can credit that person.

Then, I started my road trip with a confusing entry in Wikipedia on this ship, which I found out was actually owned by the Confederate government so correctly was the CSS Owl.  It didn't enter the war until near the end, but at the time was the best designed ship available to do the job it was supposed to do.

And, it was commanded at the end by a person I really admire, John Newland Maffitt.

The ship ran into Wilmington near the end and was headed there when news came that Fort Fisher had fallen.  Maffitt then tried to run into Charleston, S.C., Florida and finally Galveston.  It was helped out of a really tight place on that final run in by the CSS Diana, a ship I had never heard of before.  This ship will be my next area of research.  (And, I found out it was a Confederate ship, then a Union ship and went back to being a Confederate ship.  How's that for interest?)

After running out of that place, Maffitt sailed to England and turned the Owl over to authorities there.

So, Let's Go Road Tripping Through Some Civil War Naval History.  --Old B-Runner