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Commanders: Comm. William T. Muse,

                        Lt. James W. Cooke

Original name: Fairfield

Tonnage: 100 55/95 tons

Rig: Tugboat; iron hull screw steamer

Dimensions: 96 8/10’ x 17 6/10’ x 6 8/10’

Built By: Harlan & Hollingsworth

Location/Year: Wilmington, Del., 1860

Home Port: Wilmington, Del. (enrollment #6 – 4 August 1860)

Description: 1 deck, no mast, round stern, no figurehead

Engine/Boilers: High-pressure, 18x18

Commissioned: 2 August 1861

Armament: 1 – 32 pdr., 1 – 12 pdr. howitzer (#1199 on muzzle)

 

 

 

Service Record

·        Defense of Forts Hatteras and Clark, Hatteras, NC, 28-29 August 1862

·        Defense of Roanoke Island, NC, 7-8 February 1862

·        Captured during the battle of Elizabeth City, NC, 10 February 1862

·        Commissioned USS Ellis

·        Capture of Fort Macon, NC, 25-26 April 1862

·        Expedition to Swansboro, NC, 15-19 August 1862

·        Captured Jacksonville, NC, under Lt. William B. Cushing, 23 November 1862

·        Grounded; destroyed at New River Inlet, 24 November 1862

 

 

A boarding party from the USS Ceres captured the CSS Ellis by hand-to-hand combat during the battle of Elizabeth City. This was one of the last times during the Civil War that a boarding party captured a ship during a battle. Renamed the USS Ellis, she helped transport the seamen captured during the battle of Elizabeth City to Roanoke Island. Lt. William B. Cushing destroyed her near New River Inlet on 24 November 1862 to prevent her recapture after running aground the previous day.

 

Drawing by Charles Johnson

9th NY Zouaves

 

Drawing courtesy of the

New York Historical Society

 

CSS Ellis’s captured  flag

hanging at the US Naval Academy