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CSS ''Robert E. Lee'' was a blockade runner for the Confederate States during the American Civil War that later served in the United States Navy as USS ''Fort Donelson'' and in the Chilean Navy as ''Concepción''. ==CSS ''Robert E. Lee''== ''Robert E. Lee'' was originally the merchant ship ''Giraffe'', a schooner-rigged, iron-hulled, oscillating-engined paddle-steamer with two stacks, built on the River Clyde in Scotland during the autumn of 1862 as a fast Glasgow-Belfast packet. Alexander Collie & Co. of Manchester acquired her for their blockade-running fleet, but were persuaded by renowned blockade-runner Lieutenant John Wilkinson, CSN, to sell her to the Confederate States Navy for the same £32,000 just paid. Her first voyage was into Old Inlet, Wilmington, North Carolina in January 1863 with valuable munitions and 26 Scottish lithographers, eagerly awaited by the Confederate Government bureau of engraving and printing. On January 26, Union intelligence maintained she "could be captured easily" at anchor in Ossabaw Sound, but this was not to be for another 10 months. Running out again, ''Robert E. Lee'' started to establish a nearly legendary reputation for blockade running by leaving astern blockader . Lieutenant Richard H. Gayle, CSN, assumed command in May 1863, relieving Lieutenant John Wilkinson; but Wilkinson was conning the ship again out of the Cape Fear River from Smithville, North Carolina on October 7, 1863, as recounted by Lieutenant Robert D. Minor, CSN, in a letter to Admiral Franklin Buchanan dated February 2, 1864, detailing the first venture to capture and liberate 2,000 Confederate prisoners at Johnson's Island, Sandusky, Ohio. ''Robert E. Lee'' transported Wilkinson, Minor, Lieutenant Benjamin P. Loyall and 19 other naval officers to Halifax, Nova Scotia with $35,000 in gold and a cotton cargo "subsequently sold at Halifax for $76,000 (gold) by the War Department — in all some $111,000 in gold, as the sinews of the expedition." Thus Wilkinson was in Canada and Gayle commanding when ''Robert E. Lees luck ran out on November 9, 1863, after 21 voyages in 10 months carrying out over 7,000 bales of cotton, returning with munitions invaluable to the Confederacy. She left Bermuda five hours after her consort, CSS ''Cornubia'', only to be run down a few hours after her by the same blockader, . The two runners were conceded to be easily "the most noted that ply between Bermuda and Wilmington." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「CSS Robert E. Lee」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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