January 10, 1865---The Strange Voyage of the C.S.S. STONEWALL

JANUARY 10, 1865:          

The filthy and freezing winter weather continued, essentially precluding any but the smallest scale military actions throughout much of the East and the Midwest. In Pennsylvania, Emilie Davis wrote:

[R]aining fast all the morning it slushed toward evening i went down home then to meeting we had a very good meeting.  Nell did not go.

In Europe, James Dunwoody Bulloch took belated possession of the C.S.S. STONEWALL, a 1390-ton ironclad ram. Built in France in early 1864 according to Confederate specifications, it was one of two sister ships ordered by Bulloch. The French named them CHEOPS and SPHYNX. 

By the summer of 1864, pro-Confederate sentiment had evaporated in France and the French sold the two ships to Denmark and Prussia who were embroiled in the Second Schleswig-Holstein War. SPHYNX became the Danish warship STAERKODDER, while CHEOPS became the Prussian warship PRINZ ADALBERT. The Second Schleswig-Holstein War ended suddenly on October 30, 1864. Prussia retained the PRINZ ADALBERT, but Denmark returned the unused STAERKODDER to France, who re-sold the ship to Bulloch. Bulloch thus paid for three vessels (one twice) but received only one, while France made a tidy profit selling two ships three times. 

C.S.S. STONEWALL made it from France to Spain before she sprang a serious leak. After repairs, her skipper, Captain T.J. Page C.S.N. sailed her to Lisbon, then to Cuba, and hence to the Bahamas, planning on bombarding Union-held Port Royal, South Carolina. Upon anchoring in the Nassau in mid-May, Captain Page was informed that the war had ended, and he sold the ship to the British authorities for $16,000.00. The British then sold the ship to the U.S. Navy for the same $16,000.00. The U.S. Navy (the only owner who apparently never renamed her) then sold the ship to the Japanese Imperial Navy for $40,000.00, but, due to political considerations, Japan did not take possession of the vessel, now named KOTETSU (“Ironclad”), until 1869.  She was renamed AZUMA in 1871 after she was taken out of battle commission. She went to the breaker’s yard in 1908. Despite her ignominious end, she was the first ship of the modern Imperial Japanese Navy.