Cold Open

It’s the night of March 19th, 1863. The American Civil War is two years old and off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, the Confederate warship SS Georgiana steams through the darkness.

Standing on deck, the ship’s captain, A.B. Davidson, peers out into the night. The sky brightens… as a distant cannon fires.

Captain Davidson breathes a sigh of relief as the cannonball just misses his ship. But it’s no time to relax. He knows they have been spotted and soon every enemy vessel in the area will be upon them.

Six months ago, Confederate leaders ordered the construction of what they hoped would be the fastest ship in their fleet. The SS Georgiana was designed to carry vital war supplies to Confederate army, using its speed to evade the Union blockade around the Southern states. Now, the Georgiana has been finished and, on its maiden voyage, Captain Davidson has the dangerous task of delivering the new warship into Confederate territory.

Captain Davidson orders maximum speed. The ship picks up pace, and the water is pounding against its iron hull.

But then out of the darkness looms an enemy ship. It’s the USS Wissahickon. The two ships are so close that Captain Davidson can hear his counterpart on the Wissahickon giving the order to fire.

Cannonballs punch through the Georgiana’s hull.

Water rushes into the ship. But Captain Davidson roars at his men to press on. The Georgiana darts ahead of the Wissahickon and slips into a narrow channel leading straight toward Charleston harbor. For a moment, it seems like the ship might escape - but then six more Union gunboats join the chase.

They too fire on the Georgiana, riddling her with holes. And as the crew look to their captain, Davidson orders a white lamp to be lit - a signal that they are surrendering.

The Georgiana limps to a halt, immobilized. And soon, Union troops approach in rowboats to seize the ship as a prize. But what they don’t know is the white light is a trick.

When the Union boats draw near, the crew of the Georgiana release a burst of small arms fire, and Captain Davidson gives the order for the Georgiana to make a break for it.

Captain Davidson’s ruse leaves the Union ships in his wake. He hopes the Georgiana can now make it into port. The lights of Charleston are in sight. But the ship is still taking on water and Davidson soon realizes that he has no choice. To stop the Georgiana falling into the hands of the enemy, he orders his men to douse the boilers, smash the pumps, and scuttle the Confederacy's newest warship.

During the American Civil War, the Union Navy tried to cripple the Confederacy by blockading the ports of the South. Union ships stopped guns and ammunition from entering and blocked cotton from leaving. But the Confederates outfitted special ships, called blockade runners, to break through. And the fastest ship in the Confederate fleet was the SS Georgiana, lost in 1863 - and rediscovered exactly 102 years later on March 19th, 1965.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is March 19th, 1965: Discovering the Wreck of the SS Georgiana.

Act One: Undercover

It’s June 4th, 1861, in Liverpool, England, two years before the sinking of the SS Georgiana.

Cranes swing overhead and foremen shout orders as Commander James Bulloch, a broad man with bright blue eyes, steps off his ship and onto the busiest dock in Europe. He is met by Captain Caleb Huse and the two Americans greet each other in quiet voices. They don’t want to stand out among the teeming crowd of sailors and dockworkers because they are in Britain on a top-secret mission for the Confederacy: commissioning ships to break through the Union’s blockade of southern ports.

At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, U.S. Secretary of State William Henry Seward advised President Abraham Lincoln to deploy the U.S. Navy to stop ships entering or leaving the South. Diplomatically, it was a risky proposition, and Navy Secretary Gideon Welles advised against it, believing such a blockade would provoke Britain, and since the British depended on the cotton produced in the American South. In Welles’ opinion, cutting off the trans-Atlantic trade routes risked driving Britain to enter the war against the Union, all but guaranteeing a victory for the South. 

But Lincoln decided the blockade was a necessary risk. And fortunately for the Union, Britain remained officially neutral during the conflict. That policy, however, meant that the Confederate government couldn’t buy blockade runners directly from British shipbuilders. Instead, the Confederates had to purchase their ships through private corporations such as John Fraser and Company, the employer of both James Bulloch and Caleb Huse.

Now in Liverpool, James and Caleb get to work immediately. They rent an office and meet with shipbuilders and arms merchants. Within weeks, they have commissioned the construction of two new ships, which they named the Florida and the Alabama. They order these blockade runners right under the nose of the Union Consul in Liverpool, whose office is in the same building as theirs.

And many more ships follow. So that, by the fall of 1861, James is ready to return to the South, his mission complete. He leaves Caleb in charge and boards the Fingal, a steamer he rents and loads with fifteen thousand Enfield rifles and a million rounds of ammunition for the Confederate Army. His destination is Savannah, Georgia.

James sails under the British flag, hoping to avoid detection. But if he is discovered by the U.S. Navy, flying the Union Jack means he won’t be able to fight back without endangering Britain’s neutrality. So, James carries with him a bill of sale as a solution. If intercepted, he will buy the rented vessel on the spot, hoist the Confederate flag, and fire on the enemy.

Thankfully for James, it never comes to that. He manages to avoid the Union blockade and arrives safely in Savannah in the dead of night on November 12th, 1861. James’ colleague, Caleb Huse, returns to America soon after as well. He captains an even larger ship loaded with a million dollars’ worth of war supplies. Both journeys prove the viability of using British ships to run the blockade.

So, in the remaining weeks of 1861, thirty more steamers secretly sail from Liverpool to the U.S. coast. In the following year, hundreds of journeys go back and forth across the Atlantic, carrying cotton from the South to trade for rifles, cannons, clothing, and medicine in Britain. And in 1863, construction begins on the largest Confederate blockade runner to date. John Fraser and Company registers the ship in Britain using false papers, but its real name is the SS Georgiana.

Once complete the Georgiana will be able to carry 400 tons of cargo. It will require 140 men to crew. And at over 200 feet long, it will be big enough to mount fourteen cannon, making the warship twice as powerful as any other blockade runner in the Confederate fleet. The Georgiana will also be painted black to camouflage her at night, and her top speed will be a blistering 19 knots.

The ship is so special that even the Union Consul in Liverpool hears rumors about its construction. He directs all his efforts to preventing the ship from leaving Britain. But two of his own agents are secret Confederate sympathizers, and when they locate the new ship, they delay their report just long enough for the Georgiana to set sail and head across the ocean for the Confederate coast.

Waiting there will be the man who paid for the warship. The man who made the secret trans-Atlantic trade route possible: the richest man in the Confederacy and one of the most cunning in all America.

Act Two: Profit

It’s the winter of 1863 in Charleston, South Carolina, just weeks before the sinking of the blockade runner, SS Georgiana.

George Trenholm is hosting a lavish feast at his mansion, one of the most ornate homes in the Confederacy. George himself is tall and famously handsome, and he sits at the end of a long table covered in imported delicacies. His guests tonight include all the Southern elites, including the president of the Confederate states, Jefferson Davis.

George is one of the richest men in America and by far the richest man in the South. He owns hotels, plantations, and factories. But the most important part of his business empire is John Fraser and Company, the shipping giant responsible for commissioning the Confederate navy’s blockade runners. George started at John Fraser and Company as a clerk when he was only a teenager. By 31 though, he was promoted to partner. And at 47, he bought the firm outright.

George is a savvy businessman, renowned for his ability to forecast the future. Even before Abraham Lincoln was elected president, he began predicting that war would soon break out between the North and South. To prepare for what he thought was an inevitable conflict, he closed the John Fraser and Company office in Manhattan and made plans to open another in Liverpool, England. Then when fighting did break out in America in 1861, George put his carefully laid plans into action. He contacted his friend, the Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and offered his company’s services.

The new Confederacy needed a navy but lacked both the resources and the machinery to construct its own. That’s where George stepped in. He could purchase the fleet he knew the Confederacy now required overseas.

But he didn’t just help create the Confederate Navy. In the early months of the war, George came up with various ways for the Southern blockade runners to evade detection. He realized that registering ships using British names, under a fake British company, would throw Union spies off the trail. He also listed his ship’s destinations as the British-controlled Bahamas and commanded his captains to reroute toward Savannah or Charleston only at the very last moment.

Since the Confederate government was only newly formed, European powers were wary of dealing with it. John Fraser and Company, on the other hand, had an excellent reputation and perfect credit. So, George volunteered to act as the South’s de facto ambassador in Europe.

He retained his independence as a private businessman, though, and even occasionally defied direct orders from Jefferson Davis. In the early months of the war, the Confederacy instituted an embargo against Britain, hoping that cutting off the country’s cotton supply might force it to declare war on the Union. George saw that this was a tactical mistake that would only enrage a potential ally. So, he loaded his ships with cotton and sent them overseas anyway.

But all throughout, George maintained a steep price for his services. In the first two years of the war, he made over ten million dollars selling smuggled goods to the Confederate government, almost a quarter of a billion dollars today. George’s fleet grew to over 40 ships. His vessels carried essentials like food, medicine, clothing, and tobacco. But for his friends, he always left space in the cargo hold for luxuries like silk slippers and fine wines.

And at this feast, George serves lamb and beef. His enslaved workers wear elegant European attire and are better dressed than most of the guests.

Standing, George raises his glass to toast his newest and most formidable ship, the Georgiana. He hopes it will help turn the tide of the war. And since the ship is so critical, he’s named it after his own daughter, who died when she was young. Everyone toasts the ship’s safe passage from Britain, and then the guests at the feast are sent on their way with gift baskets filled with French wine.

The Georgiana will never reach Charleston. But George’s smuggling enterprise will continue. He will build another twenty ships and make another ten million dollars - even as it becomes clear that the Confederacy is losing the war.

In 1864, George moves to Richmond where he is appointed treasurer of the Confederacy. And in the final days of the Civil War, he flees the city with all of the South’s remaining gold. When peace returns to America, George will be imprisoned briefly but will be pardoned months later by President Andrew Johnson. He will die in 1876, still a very rich man, but few will remember his name until his greatest ship is rediscovered almost a century later.

Act Three: Wreck

It’s March 19th, 1965, in a channel leading to Charleston harbor, exactly 102 years after the sinking of the SS Georgiana.

Wearing a full wetsuit, 19-year-old Edward Lee Spence peers over the bow of a shrimping boat into the murky water. The water’s surface is covered in seaweed and muck. But Edward is certain there’s something beneath the surface. He puts his regulator in his mouth, pulls down his goggles, and dives in.

Almost immediately, Edward collides with a rusted metal beam covered in algae. He gropes along, pulling himself down into a hollow space, which he hopes is an iron hull. He feels around and finds a glass jar embedded in the mud. Examining the jar with a flashlight, he scrubs muck from the label and discovers it’s a pill jar dated 1863.

Edward is overjoyed, bubbles erupting from his mouth as he swims to the surface. He calls triumphantly to the shrimp boat’s captain and tells him he’s done it - he’s found the Georgiana.

Edward Lee Spence is the first person to touch the ship in over a century, but in all those years, the Georgiana has been sitting in the channel where she sank, less than a mile from shore, barely five feet below the surface at low tide. After the Civil War ended, the ship was simply forgotten until Edward began researching her as a boy.

As a South Carolinian and a childhood fan of underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, Edward dreamed of becoming an undersea archaeologist and discovering the countless ships sunk off the coast during the Civil War. Before even learning to dive, he scoured archives and compiled hundreds of pages of notes on the Georgiana, which captivated him because of its size and power. He eventually triangulated a small search area from sailors’ charts and newspaper reports. He then mastered diving and took flying lessons too, so he could spend hours circling the air over Charleston Harbor looking for shapes below the water’s surface. Finally, he hired a shrimp boat to drag a hook along the seafloor, and that’s how he caught the ship he’s been searching for, for the past seven years.

Along with other divers, Edward eventually recovers over a million artifacts from the wreck. Thanks to the discovery, archaeologists take a renewed interest in locating the historic ships scattered off America’s Southeastern coast. There are still hundreds lying under the waves, just as the greatest blockade runner of them all, the Georgiana, did for 102 years until it was rediscovered on March 19th, 1965.

Outro

Next on History Daily. March 20th, 1942. General Douglas MacArthur vows “I came through and I shall return” after escaping the Japanese-occupied Philippines.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack. 

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Owen Long.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.