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CSS Lark
The ''Lark'' was a paddle steamer employed by the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. She was the last blockade runner to successfully escape from a Southern port before the Union blockade completely closed off this vital source of supplies. ''Lark'' was designed and built by John Laird & Sons. The ship made four successful round trips through the blockade between Galveston, Texas, and Havana, Cuba. In April 1865, she ran aground near the entrance to Galveston harbor. Two launches dispatched from the Union blockading squadron attacked the ''Lark'', which managed to fend off the assault with help from Confederate ground forces. On May 24, she dashed into Galveston again and managed to slip through the blockade back out to open sea, the last Confederate blockade runner to do so. References Galveston Weekly News, April 26, 1865 External links Texas in the American Civil War Blockade runners of the Confederate States Navy Paddle steamers Ships built on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lark
Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. Larks have a cosmopolitan distribution with the largest number of species occurring in Africa. Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark occurs in Australia. Habitats vary widely, but many species live in dry regions. When the word "lark" is used without specification, it often refers to the Eurasian skylark ''(Alauda arvensis)''. Taxonomy and systematics The family Alaudidae was introduced in 1825 by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors as a subfamily Alaudina of the finch family Fringillidae. Larks are a well-defined family, partly because of the shape of their . They have multiple scutes on the hind side of their tarsi, rather than the single plate found in most songbirds. They also lack a pessulus, the bony central structure in the syrinx of songbirds. They were long placed at or near the beginning of the songbirds or oscines (now often called Passeri), j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Blockade
The Union blockade in the American Civil War was a naval strategy by the United States to prevent the Confederacy from trading. The blockade was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in April 1861, and required the monitoring of of Atlantic and Gulf coastline, including 12 major ports, notably New Orleans and Mobile. Those blockade runners fast enough to evade the Union Navy could carry only a small fraction of the supplies needed. They were operated largely by foreign citizens, making use of neutral ports such as Havana, Nassau and Bermuda. The Union commissioned around 500 ships, which destroyed or captured about 1,500 blockade runners over the course of the war. Proclamation of blockade and legal implications On April 19, 1861, President Lincoln issued a ''Proclamation of Blockade Against Southern Ports'': Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paddle Steamers
A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans. In the early 19th century, paddle wheels were the predominant way of propulsion for steam-powered boats. In the late 19th century, paddle propulsion was largely superseded by the screw propeller and other marine propulsion systems that have a higher efficiency, especially in rough or open water. Paddle wheels continue to be used by small, pedal-powered paddle boats and by some ships that operate tourist voyages. The latter are often powered by diesel engines. Paddle wheels The paddle wheel is a large steel framework wheel. The outer edge of the wheel is fitted with numerous, regularly spaced paddle blades (called floats or buckets). The bottom quarter or so of the wheel travels under water. An engi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blockade Runners Of The Confederate States Navy
A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are legal barriers to trade rather than physical barriers. It is also distinct from a siege in that a blockade is usually directed at an entire country or region, rather than a fortress or city and the objective may not always be to conquer the area. While most blockades historically took place at sea, blockades are also used on land to prevent entrance of an area. For example, Armenia is a landlocked country A landlocked country is a country that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins. There are currently 44 landlocked countries and 4 landlocked de facto states. Kazakhstan is the world's largest ... that Turkey and Azerbaijan blockade. Thus, Armenia cannot conduct international trade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas In The American Civil War
Texas declared its secession from the Union on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States on March 2, 1861, after it had replaced its governor, Sam Houston, who had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. As with those of other states, the Declaration of Secession was not recognized by the US government at Washington, DC. Some Texan military units fought in the Civil War east of the Mississippi River, but Texas was more useful for supplying soldiers and horses for the Confederate Army. Texas' supply role lasted until mid-1863, when Union gunboats started to control the Mississippi River, which prevented large transfers of men, horses, or cattle. Some cotton was sold in Mexico, but most of the crop became useless because of the Union's naval blockade of Galveston, Houston, and other ports. Secession In the early winter of 1860, Texan counties sent delegates to a special convention to debate the merits of secession. The convention adopted an "Ordinan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola ( Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. The official area of the Republic of Cuba is (without the territorial waters) but a total of 350,730 km² (135,418 sq mi) including the exclusive economic zone. Cuba is the second-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti, with over 11 million inhabitants. The territory that is now Cuba was inhabited by the Ciboney people from the 4th millennium BC with the Gua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba ''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency. The city has a population of 2.3million inhabitants, and it spans a total of – making it the largest city by area, the most populous city, and the List of metropolitan areas in the West Indies, fourth largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The city of Havana was founded by the Spanish Empire, Spanish in the 16th century, it served as a springboard for the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish conquest of the Americas becoming a stopping point for Spanish galleons returning to Spain. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galveston, Texas
Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Galveston County and second-largest municipality in the county. It is also within the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area at its southern end on the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Galveston, or Galvez' town, was named after 18th-century Spanish military and political leader Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez (1746–1786), who was born in Macharaviaya, Málaga, in the Kingdom of Spain. Galveston's first European settlements on the Galveston Island were built around 1816 by French pirate Louis-Michel Aury to help the fledgling empire of Mexico fight for independence from Spain, along with other colonies in the Western Hemisphere of the Americas in Central and South America in the 1810s and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Laird & Sons
John Laird (14 June 1805 – 29 October 1874) was a British shipbuilder and key figure in the development of the town of Birkenhead. He was the elder brother of Macgregor Laird. He was one of the first to use iron in the construction of ships. Early years Born in Greenock, Scotland, the eldest son of Scottish entrepreneur William Laird and Agnes (née Macgregor), John Laird was raised in Liverpool and educated at that city's Royal Institution. In 1824 the Laird family moved to Birkenhead, on the opposite bank of the River Mersey, where William Laird and Daniel Horton established the Birkenhead Iron Works. This manufactured boilers near Wallasey Pool. This partnership was dissolved in 1828 and William Laird was joined in his business by John Laird, who had been a solicitor's articled clerk. The company was renamed William Laird & Son. Shipbuilding Laird realised that the techniques of bending iron plates and riveting them together to build ships were similar to the prin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blockade Runner
A blockade runner is a merchant vessel used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait. It is usually light and fast, using stealth and speed rather than confronting the blockaders in order to break the blockade. Blockade runners usually transport cargo, for example bringing food or arms to a blockaded city. They have also carried mail in an attempt to communicate with the outside world. Blockade runners are often the fastest ships available, and come lightly armed and armored. Their operations are quite risky since blockading fleets would not hesitate to fire on them. However, the potential profits (economically or militarily) from a successful blockade run are tremendous, so blockade-runners typically had excellent crews. Although having ''modus operandi'' similar to that of smugglers, blockade-runners are often operated by state's navies as part of the regular fleet, and states having operated them include the Confederate States of America during the American Civi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cammell Laird
Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. It was formed from the merger of Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. The company also built railway rolling stock until 1929, when that side of the business was separated and became part of the Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company. History Formation from merger of Laird Company and Cammell & Co. The Laird Company was founded by William Laird, who had established the Birkenhead Iron Works in 1824. When he was joined by his son, John Laird in 1828, their first ship was an iron barge. John realised that the techniques of making boilers could be applied to making ships. The company soon became pre-eminent in the manufacture of iron ships and also made major advances in propulsion. In 1860, John Laird was joined in the business by his three sons, renaming the company John Laird, Sons & Co. The sons continued the business after their father's death in 187 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
