A Real Princess

The British blockade runner the Princess Royal was captured by the Union Navy January 29^th 1863 at Charleston, South Carolina.

The British ship the Princess Royal was a 774 ton iron hulled screw steam boat built in Glasgow, Scotland.  She was trying to run the Union blockade of Charleston, South Carolina on January 29^th 1863 when she was captured by the USS Unadilla.  She was purchased from the Philadelphia Prize Court in March 18^th 1863 and refitted as a cruiser.  Commissioned May 29^th 1863, she was placed under the command of Melancthon B Woolsey.

 The USS Princess Royal was sent to the Gulf of Mexico in June 1863.  Her first Union action was an engagement against Confederates in Donaldson, Louisiana on June 28^th 1863.  While serving off the Texas coast between 1863 and the end of the war in 1865, she captured or wrecked a number of blockade runners.  The Princess' last capture was the CSS Anna Sophia in February 7^th 1865 in Galveston Bay, a cotton loaded schooner.

Following the end of the war the Princess was sold, and she became a merchant steamer.  She was sunk January 10^th 1874 off the Cape Fear, North Carolina.