CSS Sea Bird

Career	Confederate Navy Jack
Name:	CSS Sea Bird
Owner:	E. H. Delk
Builder:	Benjamin Terry
Launched:	1854 Keyport, New Jersey
Commissioned:	1861
Decommissioned:	February 10, 1862
Homeport:	Norfolk, VA
Fate:	Rammed and sunk by USS Commodore Perry
General characteristics
Displacement:	202 tons
Length:	133 ft
Beam:	21 ft
Depth of hold:	7 ft
Decks:	1 deck
Installed power:	1 low pressure 30" x 84" vertical-beam engine built by Birkbeck, Furnam & Co., NY
Propulsion:	Side wheels.
Complement:	42 officers and men
Armament:	1 32-pounder smoothbore cannon, 1 30-pounder rifled cannon
Notes:	No mast, round tuck, no figurehead (Information from enrollment #78; December 26, 1860).

CSS Sea Bird was a sidewheel steamer in the Confederate States Navy.

Sea Bird was built at Keyport, New Jersey in 1854, was purchased by North Carolina at Norfolk, Virginia in 1861 and fitted for service with the Confederate States Navy. She was assigned to duty along the Virginia and North Carolina coasts with Lieutenant Patrick McCarrick, CSN, in command. Sea Bird served as the flagship of Confederate Flag Officer William F. Lynch's "mosquito fleet" during the hard-fought battles in defense of Roanoke Island on February 7–8, 1862, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina, on February 10 when she was rammed and sunk by USS Commodore Perry. Her casualties were two killed, four wounded, and the rest captured.

References

W. Craig Gaines, Encyclopedia of Civil War shipwrecks. Louisiana State University Press, 2008.

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

External links

• CSS Sea Bird Muster Roll.