triumphTriumph, 1861-1869
This vessel had several lives and political allegiances. It was built in Scotland
in 1861 as the merchant steamship Fingal.1
As Fingal, it ran a blockade at Savannah, Georgia in November of 1861, during the American
Civil War, and was captured and converted into the CSS Atlanta: an ironclad ram
built to attack Federalist warship blockades at ports and rivers along the same coast.2
As CSS Atlanta, it was forced to surrender after running aground during a battle in Wassau Sound,
whereafter it was taken into Union service as the USS Atlanta.3
It was decommissioned at Philadelphia in June, 1865; however, it was apparently sold
into service again in 1869 as the Hatian warship Triumph, a name it carried to its fate when it disappeared somewhere off Cape Hatteras, North
Carolina, in December of that year.4
- 1. CSS Atlanta (1862-1863), later USS Atlanta (1864-1869), Naval Historical Center.
- 2. Ibid.
- 3. Ibid.
- 4. Ibid.
Mentions of this vessel in the documents