crew—Serious defects—Loss of time—Driven back off the
Fastnet—Arrival at Madeira—Northerners and the duties of
neutrals—Southern sympathies—Federal cruisers—Nearing the
Bahamas—Admiral Wilkes—The Banshee runs into
Nassau—Preparing for business—A daring and successful
commander—Engineer Erskine—Tom Burroughs.
After my disappointment it will easily be imagined how anxious I was to know how my new ship was progressing. On reaching Liverpool my first care was to visit the yard where she was being built. To my great delight I found her almost completed, and a marvel of shipbuilding as it seemed to us then. For the Banshee, as she was called, may claim to be a landmark not only in the development of blockade but also of marine architecture. With the exception of a boat built for Livingstone of African fame, she was, I believe, the first steel ship ever laid down. The new blockade-runner was a paddle boat, built of steel, on extraordinarily fine lines, 214 feet long and 20 feet beam, and drew only 8 feet of water. Her masts were mere poles without yards, and with the least possible rigging. In order to attain greater speed in a sea-way she was built with a turtle-back deck forward. She was of 217 tons net register, and had an anticipated sea speed of eleven knots, with a coal consumption of thirty tons a day. Her crew, which included three engineers and twelve firemen, consisted of thirty-six hands all told.
Steel ship-building was then in its infancy, and the Banshee was the first of a fleet that was soon to become famous. There were several similar steamers already in hand, and although no one could tell how they would behave when exposed to the great seas of the Atlantic, the best results were anticipated from the strength and lightness of their materials. They were expected to develop a buoyancy beyond everything that had yet been seen, and American naval officers awaited their arrival on the scene of activity with an interest as great as ours.
The Banshee was ready for sea early in 1863, and I had the satisfaction of finding myself steaming down the Mersey in the first steel vessel that ever crossed the Atlantic.
Like most first attempts, however, she was far from a success, and by the time we reached Queenstown she had betrayed serious defects. To begin with, the speed she developed was extremely disappointing. With the idea of protecting her boilers from shot, they had been constructed so low that they had not sufficient steam space, and, worse than this, the plates of which she was built, being only an 1/8 and 3/16 of an inch thick, she proved so weak that her decks leaked like a sieve. It was found absolutely necessary to put into Queenstown and make such alterations as were possible. Thus three more weeks were lost, and when at last we were able to put out again it was only to be driven back off the Fastnet by a south-westerly gale, which swept the Banshee clean from stem to stern of everything on deck, filled her fore stoke-hole, and compelled us to return for fresh repairs. Considering how frail the vessel was, the wonder is, not that the Banshee was driven back, but that she ever got across the Atlantic at all. Still her next start was successful, and reaching Madeira without adventure, excepting a close shave from being run down in the Bay of Biscay by a French barque, she began her real career as a blockade-runner.