In 1863, when the demand for suitable merchant steamers to run the
Wilmington blockade could not be met, even at enormous prices, the
eager buyers began to bid on the Clyde River steamers. Some of
extraordinary speed but of frail construction were lost on the long
and often tempestuous voyage across the Atlantic via Madeira and
Bermuda, while others succeeded in passing the blockade with almost the
regularity of mail boats. Of such was the _Bendigo_, previously named
the _Milly_. Her description was as follows: Topsail yard schooner
_Bendigo_; steamship of Liverpool, late _Milly_, 178 tons, built of
iron, hull painted green, three portholes on either side fore and aft
of paddle boxes. Elliptic stern, carriage and name on same painted
white, bridge athwartships on top of paddle boxes; after funnel or
smokestack, with steam pipe fore part of same, fire funnel or smoke
stack with steam pipe fore part of same; draws eight feet six inches
aft and eight feet forward.
I am putting this description (now obsolete) on record because it was a
type of many other blockade runners in 1863-64.
The _Wilmington Journal_ of January 11, 1864, described the stranding
of the blockade runner _Bendigo_ at Lockwood's Folly Inlet, from
which it appears that the wreck of the blockade runner _Elizabeth_
was mistaken by the _Bendigo_ for a Federal cruiser, and in trying
to run between the wreck and the beach the _Bendigo_ was stranded.
The _Bendigo_ was discovered at 11 a.m. January 4, 1864, by Acting
Rear Admiral S.P. Lee on his flagship _Fahkee_, who attempted with
the assistance of the _Fort Jackson_, _Iron Age_, _Montgomery_, and
_Daylight_ to haul off the _Bendigo_, in which they failed because
the Confederate batteries on shore drove them off with the loss of
the _Iron Age_, which got aground and blew up. The _Bendigo_ was set
on fire and abandoned and her hull may be still visible at Lockwood's
Folly Bar.