Editing CSS Robert E. Lee (section)

==CSS ''Robert E. Lee''==
''Robert E. Lee'' was originally the merchant ship ''Giraffe'', a [[schooner]]-rigged, iron-hulled, oscillating-engined [[paddle-steamer]] with two stacks, built by [[John Brown & Company#J&G Thomson|J&G Thomson's Clyde Bank Iron Shipyard]] at [[Govan]] in [[Glasgow]], Scotland, and launched on 16 May 1860 as a fast [[Glasgow]]-[[Belfast]] [[Packet boat|packet]] for the [[J. & G. Burns]] Line.<ref name="Silverstone2006">{{cite book|author=Paul Silverstone|title=Civil War Navies, 1855-1883|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=77v2AX6IxUoC&pg=PA49|date=6 November 2006|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-86549-8|page=49}}</ref><ref name="Robins 2012 p. 84">{{cite book | last=Robins | first=N. | title=The Coming of the Comet: The Rise and Fall of the Paddle Steamer | publisher=Seaforth Publishing | year=2012 | isbn=978-1-84832-134-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J0SuCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA84 | access-date=4 December 2021 | page=84}}</ref>

Alexander Collie & Co. of [[Manchester]] acquired her for their blockade-running fleet, but were persuaded by renowned blockade-runner [[Lieutenant]] [[John Wilkinson (CSN)]] to sell her to the [[Confederate States Navy]] for the same £32,000 just paid.

Her first voyage for the Confederacy was into [[Old Inlet]], [[Wilmington, North Carolina|Wilmington]], [[North Carolina]] in January 1863 with valuable munitions and 26 Scottish [[lithographer]]s, eagerly awaited by the Confederate Government bureau of engraving and printing. On January 26, [[United States|Union]] [[military intelligence|intelligence]] maintained she "could be captured easily" at anchor in [[Ossabaw Sound]], but this was not to be for another 10 months. Running out again, ''Robert E. Lee'' started to establish a near-legendary reputation for blockade running by leaving astern blockader {{USS|Iroquois|1859|6}}.

Lieutenant [[Richard H. Gayle]], CSN, assumed command in May 1863, relieving Lieutenant John Wilkinson; but Wilkinson was conning the ship again out of the [[Cape Fear River]] from [[Southport, North Carolina|Smithville, North Carolina]] on October 7, 1863, as recounted by Lieutenant [[Robert D. Minor]], CSN, in a letter to [[Admiral]] [[Franklin Buchanan]] dated February 2, 1864, detailing the first venture to capture {{USS|Michigan|1843|6}} and liberate 2,000 Confederate prisoners at [[Johnson's Island]], [[Sandusky, Ohio|Sandusky]], [[Ohio]]. ''Robert E. Lee'' transported Wilkinson, Minor, Lieutenant [[Benjamin P. Loyall]] and 19 other naval officers to [[City of Halifax|Halifax]], [[Nova Scotia]] with $35,000 in gold and a cotton cargo "subsequently sold at Halifax for $76,000 (gold) by the War Department — in all some $111,000 in gold, as the sinews of the expedition."

Thus Wilkinson was in Canada and Gayle commanding when ''Robert E. Lee''{{'s}} luck ran out on November 9, 1863, after 21 voyages in 10 months carrying out over 7,000 bales of cotton, returning with munitions invaluable to the Confederacy. She left [[Bermuda]] five hours after her consort, [[CSS Cornubia|CSS ''Cornubia'']], only to be run down a few hours after her by the same blockader, {{USS|James Adger|1851|6}}. The two runners were conceded to be easily "the most noted that ply between Bermuda and Wilmington."

This ship was not the one immortalised in the American popular song [[Waiting for the Robert E. Lee]] (1912), which was based on [[Robert E. Lee (steamboat)|a later Mississippi steamer of the same name]].