Translate

Sunday 25 November 2012

American blockade runner sidewheel paddle steamship Tristram Shandy 1864 and USS Tristram Shandy 1864-1865 and Boxer 1865-1868




Iron-built with a displacement of 444 tons and as dimensions 222’x 23’ 6½’. Fitted out with two boilers. One successful run but during the second one after a long pursuit captured on 15 May 1864 by the USS Kansas while underway from Wilmington to Nassau. Acquired by the US navy via the Boston Prize Court was she converted into a gunboat and commissioned on 12 August. Renamed Boxer on 21 June 1865 and in the end of the summer laid up in ordinary until she was sold on 1 September to J.N. Middleton of Philadelphia. Renamed as the Firefly changed she several times from owners until running aground off Havana, Cuba and becoming total loss just six years after she was sold. She was built in 1864 at Greenock, Scotland for Matthew Isaac Wilson of Liverpool.