Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Civil War Steamers.

Drying the civil war there were hundreds of steamers on the rivers of the united states. Many of this ships names are lost to history. I have been asked many times over the years if I heard of a ship or heard of a person on one of these lesser known ships. One problem with these steamers is that many were owned by small companies or private citizens. Some of these ships were leased by the army to transport troops up and down the rivers. If the need came some of these ships were commandeered and were sunk or destroyed before the captain could record them in his logs, and so the name were lost to history.

There are many Steamers named in many reports, but the reports are to long and to many to list here. So I will list the steamers and if you see a name of interest you can request a lookup. My address can be found in my profile. Please state the title of this page when asking for information or I may not be able to help you.

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1. Lotus
2. Chippewa
3. Ad.
4. Hines
5. Annie
6. Jacobs
7. Condor
8. Allison
9. Phoenix
10. Annie Jacobs
11. Night Hawk

I realize this is a short list but many of the steamers are stated together in the same reports and makes for interesting reading.

2 comments:

Tony Thomas said...

I was wondering if there was actually a manifest of ships in and out of ports which were Union and Confederate. Each Harbor Master was required to have a record of vessels which arrived, left, their cargo manifest, records of resupplies (water, fruit,coal,extra materials for sails or other repairs. Also a Drydock for repairs and other work. This may help- you in your expanding history, and unless they were lost in a fire- they should be either in the Harbor Master's Storage or the Records Building. Thank you for your time. My name is Tony Thomas I can be found at "stitch-656@hotmail.com"

Dennis Segelquist said...

Tony you asked a very good quesrtion. I been doing this for about ten years now and it's very rare that I find a manifest for cargo. You have to remember people are more interested in the crew and the passengers then what the ship cargo was. Even the official records says little about the cargo. I understand the ( N. A. ) have some manifest. I would try the Library and Historical Soc. of the big ports the ships sailed in and out of like New York, Mass.and Boston. Maybe one of my readers will have a answer for us.