Sea History 166 - Spring 2019

Page 36

Escape From Charleston:

A Union Soldier and the Demise of the Blockade Runner Celt by William A. Cahill

Launch of the New Steamer Celt

This new steamer, which has been on the stocks about five months, was successfully launched from the shipyard on South Bay, of Mr. F. M. Jones, builder, Thursday evening. She is a beautifully modeled vessel of light draught, is built in the most substantial manner with white oak and yellow pine, and is intended for either heavy freight transportation, or can be used for a gunboat. Her size is 160 feet long, breadth of beam, 25 feet, depth in hold 9 feet. She is to be supplied with low pressure engines of about 250 horse power, and is superior to the steamer Planter, now off to the blockaders. The Celt is the property of our energetic and enterprising fellow citizen, Captain John Ferguson, owner of the Planter, which was built and launched from the same shipyard. We trust that the success of this new vessel will more than doubly counterbalance the heavy loss he has sustained in the abduction of the Planter. The Celt was last evening taken around to Southern Wharf for the purpose of receiving her machinery. Great credit is due the builder, Mr. Jones, for the activity he has shown on the early completion of this boat. —Charleston Courier, 16 May 1862

courtesy of the author

on 12 April 1861, newly inaugurated president Abraham Lincoln ordered a blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to deprive the Confederacy of freedom of movement and, importantly, to prevent it from trading with Europe. To counter this strategy, the South employed fast blockade runners to evade the Union Navy; these vessels and their crews were considered the lifeline of the Confederacy throughout the Civil War. Blockade runners were often operated by British citizens, who made use of nearby neutral ports in Cuba, the Bahamas, and Bermuda. Food, clothing, and matériel were smuggled in to the Confederacy, while

Michael S. Kirby 34

much-needed cotton to supply the textile industry in England was smuggled out of the South. In the opening months of the war, the Confederacy scrambled to assemble a navy and embarked on an ambitious shipbuilding effort. Naval personnel were drawn from Southerners who had left the US Navy, and the military and civilians alike began to acquire ships—both existing vessels and newly built ships and boats, for the war effort. The Celt was built in Charleston specifically to run the blockade. In February 1865, the Celt would run aground as it was attempting to slip out of Charleston and run past the Union ships outside the harbor. Admiral John Dahlgren’s flagship USS Harvest Moon came upon the stranded vessel and took onboard a number of her crew, including a man claiming to be a stowaway Union soldier, Private Michael Kirby, supposedly of the United States Army. Dahlgren was not immediately convinced of the man’s story, but in time would verify that he was indeed who he said he was, and Kirby was sent ashore under the protection of Union forces. Who was Michael Kirby, and how did he end up in a Confederate blockade runner heading towards the open ocean from a Southern port? A native of Ireland, Michael S. Kirby was born in the town of Dungarvan, Waterford County, on 27 December 1842. His father, Patrick, brought his family to

the United States in the late 1840s, residing first in Boston, then New York, and lastly in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He was a shipmaster, having followed his father Dennis’s predilection for maritime pursuits, and commanded transAtlantic ships for many years. After swallowing the anchor, he found steady work ashore as a rigger and outfitter of vessels. Michael would follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, and went to sea as a young man and in time became a shipmaster himself. Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Kirby was running canal boats belonging to the Pennsylvania Railroad on the towpaths of the Schuylkill Navigation and the Lehigh, Delaware, and Raritan canals,

berks history center museum

A

f ter the attack on Fort Sumter

Canal boat approaching the Schuylkill River Lock at Reading, PA (date unknown). SEA HISTORY 166, SPRING 2019


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Sea History 166 - Spring 2019 by National Maritime Historical Society & Sea History Magazine - Issuu