he Fanny and Jenny began her blockade running career as the Scotia. Built by Wigram and Company of Blackwall, England, in 1847, the 727-ton side-wheel steamer measured 202 feet in length, 28 feet in width, with a 14-foot-deep cargo hold. Lured by the potential for huge profits from smuggling goods into the Confederacy, the importing and exporting firm Leechwood, Harrison and Forwood of Liverpool, England, purchased the Scotia in December 1861, for about $165,000 in today’s money. She made two trips through the blockade before being captured by the USS Restless while trying to pierce the blockade of Charleston, South Carolina, on October 24, 1862. Private interests purchased the Scotia at a northern prize court auction and returned her to the blockade running trade under a rechristened name, the Fanny and Jenny. Unfortunately for her investors, the Fanny and Jenny wrecked on her first voyage to the last major port on the Atlantic seaboard still accessible to Confederate trade, Wilmington, North Carolina. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NEW HANOVER COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY, LOUIS T. MOORE COLLECTION. By late 1863, Wilmington was the Confederacy’s main sea-port, as all others had been captured or effectively cut-off from overseas trade by Union blockaders. Federal army and naval forces had placed Charleston under heavy siege earlier that year, making blockade running uncertain at best. Shipping firms subsequently transferred more and more of their opera-tions to Wilmington, which soon became known as the life-line of the Confederacy. General Robert E. Lee warned: “If Wilmington falls, I cannot maintain my army.” The message was clear. The survival of the Confederacy’s principal fighting force, and thus the Confederacy, depended upon the survival of Wilmington as a blockade running seaport. Blockade running at Wilmington became more difficult as the US Navy focused more resources and effort on stopping the illegal maritime trade there. The capture of smugglers occurred more frequently by 1864. Wrightsville Beach became a graveyard for three blockade-runners in early February of that year. All of them — Fanny and Jenny, Dee and Emily, also 20 WBM february 2014
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