Colonial Despatches

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.