Who Fitted Out The Sumter Sailing Ship?

The Sumter, a Confederate screw-steamer of 501 tons, was purchased at New Orleans in April 1861 and converted to a cruiser by Captain Raphael Semmes. She was commissioned on June 3, 1861, and put to sea on the 30th. She then sailed to Virginia and completed fitting out at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth.

Mallory appointed James Bulloch, the Confederate Naval Agent in Great Britain, to buy or contract for the building of suitable ships for the CSS Sumter. The ship’s men kept a sharp lookout for the CSS Sumter, a Confederate ship that had captured 18 U.S. merchant vessels since July 1861.

The Sumter was designed by New York shipwright and naval architect Griffiths, who designed a screw steamer of greater length and beam than her near-sisters. The ship was fitted out at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, and loaded a complement of 31 landing craft and a Beach Party unit.

The Sumter was a merchant screw-steamer of 501 tons burden, originally named the Havana, which operated as a packet ship between Cuba and New Orleans. On June 30, 1861, the Sumter, a recently refitted Confederate ship helmed by Capt. Raphael Semmes, slipped over the bar at Pass. The vessel was taken to Newport News Shipbuilding to be refitted before re-commissioning into the ROCN in 1997 as ROCS Chung Ping.

The first vessels in the list are the Sumter and Nashville, both of which were fitted with a ship rigged for the purpose of raiding U.S. merchant vessels.