A few months before the Civil War "officially" began, there was a bit of a skirmish in South Carolina....or should I say, off the coast of South Carolina...in Charleston Harbor.
The Star of the West was a civilian ship that was dispatched on Jan. 5, 1861 to carry supplies to Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter. The ship was dispatched by President James Buchanan.
While on the way to the fort, the ship was fired upon by batteries on Morris Island and Fort Moutrie. Neither Major Anderson nor the commander of the ship fired back and the ship eventually withdrew out of Charleston Harbor.
On April 18, 1861 the ship was finally captured by the General Earl Van Dorn (CSA) in the Gulf of Mexico. The Confederates changed its name to St. Phillip. It served as a hospital ship until Admiral David Farragut captured New Orleans.
But the ship continued. It carried gold, silver, and currency to Vicksburg. Eventually, the ship was sunk (purposely) near Greenwood, MS in order to block the way for the Federal flotilla coming up the Tallahatchie River.
Its amazing the "little" things that you come across when researching "bigger" events. The Star of the West, although I've known of it, turns out to have played a bigger role in the Civil War than I thought. This is the "Little Ship that Could".
When the war was finally over, the owners of the ship requested repayment from the United States Government for their ship and they were one of the more fortunate ones, they received $175,000.
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