blockade-runners attempting to enter New Inlet. Shortly
after dark on January 14, 1863, Lieutenant Couthouy
ordered his ship to anchor for the night near Wrightsville
Beach. Unfortunately, the leadsman miscalculated the
water’s depth until the blockader was almost in the breakers.
Alerted to the danger, Couthouy sounded the bell for the
engines to be reversed, but it was too late.
T
he Columbia ran hard and fast aground in
about eight feet of water at Masonboro Inlet. Despite the
crew’s best efforts to free the iron-hulled ship, waves pushed
her broadside to the shoreline and filled her boilers with
seawater. Anxious sailors fired flares into the night sky,
hoping another Union blockader would spot the Columbia
and come to her rescue. When that failed, Couthouy sent a
lifeboat to inform the Union blockading fleet at New Inlet,
some 20 miles to the south. The boat made little headway
in rough seas, and it was late the following afternoon before
it reached the US Cambridge, the nearest vessel, which
immediately got underway.
By the time the Cambridge reached the Columbia,
the US Penobscot had already arrived and begun rescue
operations. She managed to get crewmen off the wreck,
but a gale on January 15 hampered efforts. The following
morning Confederate troops showed up to lay claim to
After being fitted out as a cruiser for duty on the blockade,
the US Columbia would have looked very much like the US
Calypso, seen here, a former blockade-runner that was also
converted into a Union blockading vessel. Adding to the
evidence that the shipwreck at Masonboro Inlet is indeed
the US Columbia, these wooden sabots (above) that cradled
24-pounder cannonballs, washed ashore on Masonboro
Island, just south of the wreck site, in 2010. The Columbia’s
armament included six 24-pounder cannons.
courtesy of Dr. Chris E. Fonvielle Jr.
photography by allison potter
18
WBM january 2013