The steamship Douglas on the stocks at
Robert Napier & Sons' New Yard in Govan, 1858, photographed by Duncan
Brown.
The Douglas was built for the Isle of Man Steam Packet Co. In
November 1862 she was purchased by representatives of the Confederate
states fighting to secede from the USA. She arrived in Charleston, South
Carolina in January 1863, renamed the Margaret and Jessie and put
to work as a blockade runner. She made another eight runs before being
captured in November 1863.
The captured ship was converted by the US Navy as a gunboat which was
renamed the USS Gettysburg. She saw active service during the
remainder of the American Civil War, and then went in and out of service
in the US Navy until 1879 when she was decommissioned and sold in Genoa in
Italy.
Duncan Brown (1819-1897) was a talented amateur photographer whose work
documents aspects of Glasgow life from the 1850s until the 1890s.
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