Re: Looking for info about Fanny and Jenny wreck and REL's mystery sword
first i heard about it myself,,, maybe it was buried by the yankee with intentions of later recovery but who knows.........every story i have heard on it is like this one from a Confederate blockade runner writing down memoirs...............''The ?Fannie and Jennie.?
The Fannie and Jennie was a side-wheel Confederate steamer of note, engaged in running the blockade for about a year during the Four Years? War.
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She was of good speed, fourteen knots, and was commanded, it is said, by Captain Coxetter, of Charleston. During the night of February 9, 1864, she made the land to the northward of Wrightsville Beach, but her pilot, Burriss, was not sure of his position, so he anchored the ship and made a landing in the surf to ascertain his bearings. It having been the intention of the captain to make the land about two miles north of Fort Fisher, he then proceeded down the beach in the darkness. Unhappily, however, she stood too close in shore, and grounded repeatedly, and at about midnight stranded on a shoal a mile or two to the southward of where Lumina now stands. At daylight she was discovered by the Federal cruiser Florida, commanded by Capt. Peirce Crosby, who made me a prisoner of war a few months later. Captain Crosby, desiring to save the Fannie and Jennie and realize big prize money, ran a hawser from his ship to the stranded vessel, intending to pull her off into deep water, when a Confederate flying battery of Whitworth guns of long range, from Fort Fisher, opened fire from Masonboro Beach, and with great precision cut off one of the Florida's paddle-wheel arms, broke a second one, and cut a rim of the wheel in two; also, one of the Confederate shells exploded on
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board the Florida and came near destroying her. The Florida returned the fire, which so alarmed the captain and crew of the Fannie and Jennie that some of them attempted to reach the beach in boats. In this attempt Captain Coxetter and his purser were drowned in the breakers, the others gaining the shore; the rest of the crew, twenty-five in number, who remained on board were made prisoners by the Federals. Captain Coxetter had in his keeping a very valuable gold jewelled sword, which was to be delivered to Gen. R. E. Lee as an expression of the admiration of many prominent English sympathizers. It is still on board this wreck, which lies near a line of breakers to the south of Lumina. The Fannie and Jennie was loaded with a valuable cargo, five days out from Nassau bound to Wilmington, when she was stranded.
Hell, its only a five minute job.
