The General Sherman / USS Princess Royal

The General Sherman (USS Princess Royal 1863-1865)

On Sunday, June 12th I dove the General Sherman wreck off Little River, SC.  The diving was good however the visibility (~10 feet) could have been better.

The Sherman began its life as the Princess Royal, a 774 gross ton screw steam gunboat.  The Princess Royal was built at the shipyards in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1860-1861 and was intended for commercial use.  The ship was 200 feet long and 28 feet wide. The Princess Royal made her first run for Langlands's Liverpool service in July 1861. She was the first screw steamer in the Langland's fleet.

In 1863 the Princess Royal was contracted by Fraser, Trenholm and Co. for the Confederacy to transport critical goods such as iron clad parts, machinery for the production of small arms, molds for artillery shells, heavy artillery and marine engines for warships.  The usually method of transporting goods thru the Union blockade by ship to Bermuda or Nassau and then reshipped on blockade runners was seen unfeasible for these large and critical products.  She had two steam engines powered by coal and two full-sail masts, and could cruise at 11 knots. Her armament included two 12-pound cannons, two smaller cannons (perhaps Gattling guns), and small arms for all crew members.

The Princess Royal would be the first time an iron screw steamer was chosen to run the Union blockade with critical parts and marine engines.  The engines were badly needed by the Southern Navy to outfit its ironclads.  On board the Princess Royal were placed two pairs of horizontal direct-acting steam engines, complete with boilers and propellers rated at 180 and 110 nominal horsepower. They were destined for ironclads being built at Charleston. Also on board were 600 barrels of gunpowder, six 70-pound Whitworth cannons, 930 steel-headed Whitworth shells, 35 tons of projectile steel, a machine for moulding and planing shot and shell for guns, 1,500 ounces of quinine, plus quantities of leather, shoes, wire, files, screws, cast iron, coffee, tea, clothing, and 25 cases of paper, a total value of £78,808.

On January 17th, the Princess Royal arrived at St. George, Bermuda. Though only two years old and having a draft of eleven feet, the vessel was considered by the U.S. Bermuda consul to be too slow and heavily laden to run the blockade.  On January 23rd the Princess Royal departed Bermuda in route to the Southern States.

The owners of the Princess Royal believed she could run the blockade and reach Charleston and deliver its cargo. 

At 3:15 on the morning of the 29th of January 1863 the Princess Royal made her approach to Charleston. As she neared the harbour, she was sighted by the schooner G. W. Blunt, which opened fire and signalled the rest of the Union Squadron.  This action alerted the steamer Unadilla,  commanded by Commodore Quackenbush which forced the Princess Royal aground.

English Whitworth 5-inch rifle one of six captured on board the blockade runner Princess Royal

Boarding parties were sent out from the Union vessels but before they reached the grounded vessel the captain, pilot, passengers and crew left the ship.  The Union found on board a few British sailors and a machinist who had accompanied the vessel to instruct the Confederates in the operation of the Whitworth machinery. Using tow lines, Union warships freed the Princess Royal.  The Federal commander due to a shortage of American sailors hired the Englishmen to take the Princess Royal north to a prize court.

Although  the Princess Royal operation ended in failure, the Confederate government and Fraser, Trenholm and Co. entered into another joint venture four months later and the Gibraltar successful ran the Union blockade and delivered its cargo.

The capture of the Princess Royal was one of the most important captures of the Union government during the war and the loss to the Confederate government cannot be estimated. From the sale of the Princess Royal and its cargo, the treasury gained nearly one-quarter of a million dollars.  

The Princess Royal was purchased from a prize court and taken into the United States Navy. The Princess Royal was then employed as a Unionist cruiser as the USS Princess Royal mostly off the Texas Coast.

Sent to the Gulf of Mexico, in June 1863 the USS Princess Royal took part in a bombardment of enemy cavalry at Donaldsonville, Louisiana. While serving off the Texas coast between mid-1863 and early 1865, she captured or destroyed several sailing blockade runners.

For example on May 24th, 1865 the blockade runner Denbigh was found aground at daylight on Bird Key Spit, near Galveston. She had attempted to run into the Texas port once again under cover of darkness. She was destroyed during the day by gunfire from USS Cornubia and Princess Royal, and later boarding parties from Kennebec and Seminole set her aflame.

After the war concluded the USS Princess Royal was decommissioned and sold to Samuel C. Cook in August of 1865 and renamed the General Sherman.  Cook sent the ship to China, which was in chaos because of the Taiping uprising that began in 1849.


Veterans of the American Civil War went to China, seeking fortune and adventure. Gen. Henry A. Burgevine was one of the American mercenaries in the service of the Chinese royal court. When a low-ranking mandarin held up his pay, Burgevine beat up the old man and defected to the Taiping rebels. In 1865, he boarded the General Sherman with a small band of fellow mercenaries and sailed toward Formosa, modern-day Taiwan, to join the Taiping rebel force there. But the royal navy intercepted the General Sherman and Burgevine was thrown overboard and drowned. 


Ownership of the General Sherman is murky: After being captured by the U.S. Navy in the Civil War and sold to Cook, she was captured by the Chinese and sold to a British company. Some sources state that the ship was British-owned when she was destroyed in Korea, contrary to the Kojong Silrok which lists W. B. Preston, an American merchant-adventurer, as the ship's owner.

The General Sherman, well-known as the "black" pirate ship raiding villages along the China coast, was confiscated by the Chinese government and was sold to the Meadows & Co., a British firm in Tientsin, known today as Tianjin, which in turn sold her to Preston. Preston wanted to open the Hermit Kingdom of Korea to American trade, and loaded her with merchandise of cotton goods, tin sheets, glass, and other items. Trading was not the only goal of the Americans -- they planned to plunder the gold and precious stones buried in royal tombs.


The General Sherman left Tientsin on Aug. 9, 1866 and stopped briefly for water at Chefoo, today's Yantai, northeastern China, from where she set sail and reached the mouth of the Daedong River on August 18th.


On September 5th, 1866, the General Sherman was destroyed near Pyongyang with all hands beaten or hacked to death. When the water level rose again in the Daedong River, the ship was floated and moved to a shipyard near Seoul. The General Sherman was refurbished and christened the first modern warship of the Korean Navy. However, under intense pressure from China, which handled the foreign affairs of the Chosun Dynasty at the time, the ship was returned to the her American owner, Samuel Cook, in 1867.


William F. Weld Co. (Merchants of Boston SS Co.) bought the ship from Cook in 1868 and refurnished her for ferry service between New York and New Orleans.  On January 4th 1874, the General Sherman left New York on her usual run with four passengers and a crew of forty-two men. Her cargo consisted of general merchandise consigned to New Orleans. The weather began to worsen and on January 7, 1874 at 2:00 AM the General Sherman sprung a bad leak. The Sherman sunk off Little River Inlet, South Carolina at noon on the 10th of January 1874 ending her tragic history.  


The Sherman currently sits in 55 ft. of water and has transformed in to a reef.  The stacks, boilers, drive shaft, propeller and ribs are still visible.