Harriet Lane

Type

Paddle Steamer

Period

19th Century

Nation

United States

Overview: Harriet Lane was a side-wheel steamer built in 1857 by William H. Webb for the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, later serving the U.S. Navy and, after her 1863 capture, the Confederacy. She is notable as the vessel that fired the first shots of the Civil War in defense of the Fort Sumter relief expedition and later served as Commander David Dixon Porter's Mortar Flotilla flagship at the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip. Specifications: The ship measured roughly 177.5 feet in length with a beam of about 30.5 feet, and displaced around 619-750 tons depending on the source (revenue cutter vs. later gunboat tonnage figures). She was a copper-plated, coal-fired side-wheel steamer capable of about eleven knots, armed as a naval gunboat with three 32-pounders and four 24-pounder howitzers. Service History: Built for the Treasury Department and launched in November 1857, she alternated between Revenue Service duty and Navy assignments, including the 1858-59 Paraguay expedition where she helped extricate grounded ships in the Parana River. In 1860 she carried the Prince of Wales to Mount Vernon, and after the war began she fired on the Fort Sumter relief expedition, took part in the capture of Forts Hatteras and Clark, ran aground and was salvaged near Hatteras Inlet, served in the New Orleans campaign as Porter's flagship, and bombarded and helped capture Galveston in October 1862. Notable Facts: On 1 January 1863 she was boarded and captured by Confederate forces in Galveston Harbor after her captain and executive officer were killed in hand-to-hand fighting; the Confederates found a complete U.S. signal code aboard her. She was later sold as the blockade runner Lavinia, interned at Havana, recovered after the war, converted to a bark rig, renamed Elliott Ritchie, and finally abandoned at sea off Pernambuco, Brazil in 1884.