Star of the West
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The Star of the West was a civilian ship used by James Buchanan to send supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter before the U.S. Civil War. The first shots of the Civil War occurred when the Star of the West was fired upon by South Carolina troops (from Battery Greg on Morris Island) on January 9, 1861. This prevented the Star of the West from resupplying Major Robert Anderson's garrison at Fort Sumter.
The incident looms large in a novel by John Updike, Memories of the Ford Administration (1992). Although Updike's protagonist is trying (in the early 1990s) to write about the mid 1970s, he spent those years seeking to write a book about President Buchanan, and his mind keeps reverting to the 19th century and, among other incidents, the mission of this sloop to Sumter.
Hired out of New York as a troop transport for $1,000 a day, under its master, Elisha Howes, the Star sailed for Texas to pick up seven companies of United States troops assembled at Indianola. On April 18,1861, while anchored off Pass Caballo bar leading into Matagorda Bay, the ship was captured by Col. Earl Van Dorn and members of two Galveston militia units, the Wigfall Guards and the Island City Rifles. Two days later the ship was taken to New Orleans, where Louisiana's Governor Moore changed its name to the C.S.S. St. Philip. The old name persisted, however, and the Star served as a naval station and hospital ship until Adm. David G. Farragut captured New Orleans. Then the Star carried millions in gold, silver, and paper currency to Vicksburg and continued to Yazoo City, Mississippi. When federal Lieutenant Commander Watson Smith tried to lead two ironclads and five smaller vessels through the Yazoo Pass into the Tallahatchie River to attack Vicksburg from the rear, Confederate defenders hurriedly constructed Fort Pemberton, and Major Gen. William W. Loring had the Star sunk athwart the Tallahatchie near Greenwood to block the passage of the Union flotilla. In a skirmish on April 12, 1863, the Union forces suffered heavy casualties and were forced to withdraw. The owners of the Star collected $175,000 in damages from the United States government for their loss.
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