USS Bat was a steamer captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways. She was also later assigned to carry President Abraham Lincoln to Richmond, Virginia.
Service history
Bat was a very fast, steel-hulled, side-wheel steamer built in 1864 at Liverpool, England, for private speculators by Jones Quiggins and Co., Ltd. Their plan called for her to run through the Union blockade with highly profitable cargo desperately needed by the beleaguered South and then to slip back out to sea again, laden with cotton for the idle textile mills of England. However, early in September—while the ship was still on the stocks, but too far advanced to be modified significantly—she was purchased for the Confederate Government by Capt. James D. Bullock, CSN. Laden with heavy machinery and a large quantity of office supplies—including a goodly amount of red tape—required by Jefferson Davis' administration, the side wheeler put to sea on September 6 and proceeded under the command of veteran blockade tester, A. Hora—a reserve officer of the Royal Navy—to Halifax, Nova Scotia. After re-coaling at that port, the ship sailed for the North Carolina coast.
Meanwhile, Thomas H. Dudley, the American consul at Liverpool, had taken pains to learn of Bullock's activities and had informed Washington, D.C., of the South's purchase of Bat and of that ship's departure from the British Isles. As the blockade runner approached the Cape Fear River on the night of October 8, Union warships in the vicinity had been alerted and were expecting her. First met by Eolus, Bat retired down the coast to the vicinity of Georgetown, South Carolina, remained anchored there throughout the 9th, and weighed anchor again in the wee hours of the 10th to begin another attempt to speed through the Union line into Wilmington, North Carolina.
Upon nearing the western bar, she encountered Emma which ship gave chase, opened fire, and sent up rockets to announce the presence and course of the stranger. After Bat quickly outdistanced that steamer, Vicksburg began pursuing the speedy Southern ship, but soon lost sight of her quarry and hove to when she reached the outer edge of her assigned area. Finally, Montgomery spotted Bat, opened fire, and struck the fleeing vessel in her forecastle, killing an Austrian seaman named Mateh Madick who had been the captain of the forecastle of CSS Alabama during that Confederate cruiser's recent epic battle with . Soon thereafter, Bat surrendered and was sent to Beaufort, North Carolina, under a prize crew commanded by Acting Ensign Robert Wiley. From that port, she steamed on to Boston, Massachusetts, where she was condemned by an admiralty court.
Union Navy career
Purchased by the United States Government for service in the Union Navy, the side wheeler was repaired, fitted out at the Boston Navy Yard, and placed in commission there on December 13, 1864, Lt. Comdr. John S. Barnes in command. Assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Bat soon sailed for Hampton Roads, Virginia, but encountered a severe storm during her voyage south and lost her foremast. Sent to the Washington Navy Yard for repairs, the steamer remained there until mid January 1865. On the 23d, when Bat finally joined her squadron off Wilmington, North Carolina—where recently a fleet commanded by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter had cooperated with Army troops in the final major combined operation of the Civil War, the capture of Fort Fisher—Porter decided to take advantage of her great speed by using her as a dispatch vessel. On the day of the steamer's arrival, she began a cruise south through the Confederacy's inland waters as far down the coast as Georgetown, South Carolina. Her mission was to attempt to communicate with General William Tecumseh Sherman who—after completing his march from Atlanta, Georgia, through Georgia to the sea—had swung north to move his army toward Richmond, Virginia, in support of General Ulysses S. Grant's operations against the Confederate capital. This assignment kept the side wheeler busy through the end of January when Porter called her back to the Cape Fear River. For more than a month thereafter, the admiral used the steamer in maintaining quick communication within his squadron, occasionally breaking his flag in her.