SS Georgiana

The Georgiana was a brig-rigged, iron hulled, propeller steamer of with a jib and two heavily raked masts, hull and stack painted black. Her clipper bow sported the figurehead of a "demi-woman". Georgiana was reportedly pierced for fourteen guns and could carry over four hundred tons of cargo. She was built by the Lawrie shipyard at Glasgow-perhaps under subcontract from Lairds of Birkenhead (Liverpool)-and registered at that port in December 1862 as belonging to N. Matheson's Clyde service. The U.S. Consul at Tenerife was rightly apprehensive of her as being "evidently a very swift vessel."

Capt. Thomas Turner, station commodore, reported to Admiral S. F. du Pont that Georgiana was evidently "sent into Charleston to receive her officers, to be fitted out as a cruiser there. She had 140 men on board, with an armament of guns and gun carriages in her hold, commanded by a British naval retired officer."

The wreck

The Georgiana was lost on the night of 19 March 1863, while attempting to run past the Federal Blockading Squadron and into Charleston, South Carolina. She had been spotted by the armed U.S. Yacht (of the famed America's Cup racing trophy) which alerted the remainder of the blockade fleet by shooting up colored signal flares. The Georgiana was sunk after a desperate chase in which she came so close to the big guns aboard the that her crew even heard the orders being given on the enemy vessel. With solid shot passing entirely though...
Read More