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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
Photo # NH 58789:  Engraving of the Confederate ram 'El Tousson', which became HMS Scorpion

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- SHIPS of the BRITISH NAVY --

HMS Scorpion (Turret Ship, 1865-1903).
Originally intended to be CSS North Carolina; and
was also briefly known as Egyptian El Tousson.

HMS Scorpion, a 2750-ton ironclad turret ship built at Birkenhead, England, was one of two sisters secretely ordered from the Laird shipyard by the Confederate government in 1862. Her true ownership was concealed by the fiction that she was being constructed as the Egyptian warship El Tousson. To have been named North Carolina upon delivery to the Confederates, she would have been superior for offshore warfare to all but one of the United States' Navy warships, and thus represented a most serious danger to the Union's control of the seas.

However, effective Federal diplomacy prevented the emergence of this threat. The British government seized the pair of ironclads in October 1863, a few months after their launch and before they could be completed. In early 1864, both were purchased for the Royal Navy, receiving the new names Scorpion and Wivern.

Commissioned in July 1865, Scorpion was assigned to the Channel Fleet until 1869, with time out for a refit that reduced her sailing rig from a bark to a schooner. In late 1869, the ironclad was sent to Bermuda for coast and harbor defense service. Scorpion remained there for over three decades before being removed from the effective list. She was sunk as a target in 1901 but raised the next year and sold in February 1903. The former HMS Scorpion was lost at sea while under tow to the United States, where she was to be scrapped.

This page features all our views of the British turret ship Scorpion.

For views of Scorpion's sister ship, see: HMS Wivern.

If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 58789

"The Confederate Ram 'El Tousson', Constructed by Laird"


Line engraving published in "The Soldier in Our Civil War", Vol. II, page 68. It depicts one of the two turret ironclads laid down in 1862 by Laird Brothers for the Confederate States. "El Tousson" was a cover name for the ship intended to become CSS North Carolina. Nominally under construction for Egypt, her true ownership became known and she was seized by the British government in 1863, purchased for the Royal Navy in 1864 and completed in October 1865 as HMS Scorpion.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 111KB; 740 x 525 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 61415

HMS Scorpion
(British Turret Ironclad, 1865-1901)

Line engraving, published in "Harper's Weekly", 1866.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 179KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 48145

"Rebel Ram constructed by the Lairds"


Nineteenth Century line engraving depicting the outboard profile and rig of the two turret ironclads laid down in 1862 by Laird Brothers for the Confederate States. Intended to become CSS Mississippi and CSS North Carolina, they were seized by the British government in 1863, purchased in 1864 and completed in October 1865 as HMS Wivern and HMS Scorpion.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 92KB; 740 x 490 pixels

 


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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Page made 24 July 2001