Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 56277-h.htm or 56277-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/56277/56277-h/56277-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/56277/56277-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/derelictsaccount00spru DERELICTS [Illustration: THE CHASE OF THE LILIAN] DERELICTS An Account of Ships Lost at Sea in General Commercial Traffic and a Brief History of Blockade Runners Stranded Along the North Carolina Coast 1861-1865 by JAMES SPRUNT Author of "CHRONICLES OF THE CAPE FEAR RIVER" [Illustration] Wilmington, N.C. 1920 Copyright 1920 by James Sprunt The Lord Baltimore Press Baltimore, Md., U.S.A. To J. G. deROULHAC HAMILTON ALUMNI PROFESSOR OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WHOSE GENIUS FOR THINGS HISTORICAL INSPIRED ME WITH A DESIRE TO CONTRIBUTE SOME REMINISCENCES OF A STRANGE TRAFFIC THROUGH A BELEAGURED CITY TO THE HISTORY OF THE LOWER CAPE FEAR. "Some night to the lee of the land I shall steal, (Heigh-ho to be home from the sea!) No pilot but Death at the rudderless wheel, (None knoweth the harbor as he!) To lie where the slow tide creeps hither and fro And the shifting sand laps me around, for I know That my gallant old crew are in Port long ago-- Forever at peace with the sea!" _The Song of the Derelict._ Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. FOREWORD. About twenty-five years ago I wrote for the _Southport Leader_ a series of stories of the Cape Fear blockade from my personal experiences as a participant in the blockade runners _Advance_, _Eugénie_, _North Heath_, _Lilian_, _Susan Beirne_, and finally in the _Alonzo_, which greatly interested the Cape Fear pilots who had taken part with me in this hazardous service and were found entertaining by some other readers. Later, in the year 1901, I contributed at the request of Chief Justice Walter Clark for his admirable _North Carolina Regimental Histories_ an account of my personal adventures and observations in the _North Heath_, _Lilian_, and _Susan Beirne_, in the capacity of purser, or paymaster, at the age of seventeen and a half years, and as prisoner of war on the _Keystone State_ and the _Glaucus_, Federal cruisers, and later prisoner of war in Fort Macon and in Fortress Monroe.