Mark

Alan's post about there being a "Blue Wing", a "Blue Wing #2", and a Blue Wing #3, raises some issues with the "Dictionary of Transports and Combatant Vessels Steam and Sail Employed by the Union Army 1861-1868."

I am wondering if they got their "Blue Wing's" mixed up?

I have seen these three listings for the "Blue Wing" also and you would assume that they are talking about three different individual boats. I am not sure that is the case.

I may be incorrect but wasn't the original "Blue Wing" captured by the Federals from the Confederates and pressed into Union service as a tug for barges?

I draw this from the fact that the Federals suspected that the Captain of the original "Blue Wing" was a southern sympathizer and disloyal while in Federal service. That he intentionally ran the "Blue Wing" aground on December 16th to allow it to be captured instead of trying to evade the Confederate Cavalry on shore.

Is it possible that the Federals after they captured the original "Blue Wing" redesignated her as the "Blue Wing #2" while in Federal service?

We have several examples of this such as the "CSS/USS Gen Sterling Price", The "CSS/USS Gen Bragg", The "CSS/USS Atlanta", the steamer "Fairplay". Even the Confederates did this with the "USS/CSS Queen of the West".

Under this senerio, the entry in the "Dictionary of Transports and Combatant Vessels Steam and Sail Employed by the Union Army 1861-1868." would be correct except for the date the "Blue Wing #2" was burned. Instead of being burned on December 16th, 1862, which we know it wasn't, it was possibly burned on September 10th, 1863 at Little Rock.

Then, by 1865 a second Steamboat, the "Blue Wing #3", has been built or renamed to come on the scene to be chartered at that time. Clearly this boat would have been chartered by the Federals at that time and it would have been designated in their records as a different boats than the "Blue Wing #2"

I realize that this is speculation without confirmation which may not be available in records, but I am just trying to assemble the puzzle pieces of facts, as we know them, into a logical scenerio to possibly form a clearer picture.