“A Leap in the Dark”: The Mission of CSS Nashville

On arriving I went at once to the dockyard, and saw in the distance a flag entirely new and strange to me. Drawing nearer, I saw that it floated from the peak of a large side-wheel steamer, painted black, with more deck-houses than I had been accustomed to see on sea-going vessels. The flag I saw was the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy, and the vessel was the Nashville.**

This is how a 21-year-old Englishman, Francis Warrington Dawson, described his first encounter with the ship that was to carry him from Southampton to the war-torn American South. He probably did not know that Nashville had become famous as the target of the first shot fired at sea in the Civil War. On 12 April 1861, after the failed attempt to relieve Fort Sumter, the USRC Harriet Lane was guarding the entrance to Charleston Harbor. A steamer was sighted that ignored calls to stop and show her colours. The commander of Harriet Lane therefore ordered a warning shot across her bows from a 32-pounder. In response, Nashville hoisted the United States flag and the Federals allowed her to enter Charleston. There she remained in Confederate hands.