The Venus was 265 feet long and 1,000 tons measurement, and is represented by her captain and officers to have been one of the finest and fastest vessels engaged in running the blockade. She had the finest engines of any vessel in this trade and was sheathed completely over with iron. She drew eight feet of water, and when bound out last, crossed the bar at low water with over 600 bales of cotton on board. The wrecks of the Hebe, Douro, and Venus are within a short distance of each other.
A private notebook was found by the Federal boarding party in the effects of the captain of the Venus, in which a list of blockade runners engaged in the year 1863 was entered as follows, a total of 75 steamers, of which 34 were captured or destroyed, but this list was not complete, as a hundred at least were engaged during that period.
Vessels Engaged in Running the Blockade in 1863.
(Those marked C had been captured or destroyed.)
| Nina (C) | Gladiator |
| Leopard (C) | Hebe (C) |
| Antonica | Venus (C) |
| Thistle (C) | Juno (C) |
| Douro (C) | Princess Royal (C) |
| Calypso (C) | Cronstadt (C) |
| Granite City (C) | Phantom (C) |
| Flora | Lord Clyde |
| Ruby (C) | Dolphin |
| Eagle (C) | Hansa |
| Havelock | Ella |
| Douglas | Spaulding (C) |
| Annie Childs (C) | Mary Ann |
| Wave Queen (C) | Mail (C) |
| Giraffe (C) | Spunkie |
| Cornubia (C) | Jupiter |
| Nicolai I (C) | Gibraltar |
| St. John (C) | Boston |
| Hero[3] | Juno II |
| Gertrude (C) | Scotia |
| Britannia (C) | Flora II |
| Emma (C) | Herald |
| Georgiana (C) | Elizabeth (C) |
| J.P. Hughes | R.E. Lee |
| Banshee | Beauregard |
| Alice (Mobile) | Sumter |
| Aries (St. Thomas) (C) | Corsica |
| Neptune (C) | Bendigo |
| Norseman (C) | Diamond |
| Merrimac (C) | Margaret and Jessie |
| Kate (C) | Don |
| Orion | Pet |
| Siriens (Sirius?) | Charleston |
| Atlantic | Rouen |
| Eugénie | Hero II |
| Cuba (Mobile) (C) | Fanny |
| Raccoon | Stonewall Jackson |
| Arabian (C) |
Total, 75; captured and destroyed, 34.
The "Hebe."
Between the 15th of August and the 21st of October, 1863, the Federal fleet known as the "North American Blockading Squadron" drove ashore five blockade runners between New Inlet and Masonboro—the Arabian inside the bar of New Inlet, which became an obstruction to our ships trying to pass her; the beautiful steamer Hebe near Masonboro Inlet, the Phantom, the Douro, and the Venus near each other off Masonboro Sound.