COLONEL LAMB - CONFEDERATE BLOCKADE RUNNER1788 GRT 281' x 36' x 9'blt 1864 by Jones Quiggin & Co. (Victoria) Sidewheels, 2 engines, 4 boilers, speed 16 kts. When she was built the COLONEL LAMB represented the state-of-the-art in high speed ocean transports. She was, at the time of her launching the largest steel hull vessel in existence. In a race conducted during her speed trials she beat one of the fastest steamers on the Mersey by more than four miles in a 2 1/2 hour race. This ship ran the Union blockade several times during US Civil War. Both her masts and funnels collapsed easily to enhance her low profile. This and her great speed left her nearly invulnerable to the Union fleet.

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COLONEL LAMB was named for Col. William Lamb, the commander of Fort Fisher. This gentleman's stalwart defense kept the Fort in Confederate hands throughout the war. That in turn kept Wilmington, North Carolina, the port it protected, open to the blockade runners until late January 1865, scarcely three months before the end of the Civil War. After the war, in 1866, as the merchant vessel COLONEL LAMB, she blew up at Liverpool while loading munitions for an insurrection in Brazil.

She had a near sister with less superstructure, HOPE which ran aground off Western Bar on the Cape Fear River in Oct. 1865. She later became the Spanish naval vessel CHURRUCA and served until broken up in 1885.

John Eagan

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