This ornate gift from blockade runners to Fort Fisher's commander features palmettos, flags, cannon and a tiny replica of the Banshee. You can learn about the silver epergne at an Aug. 17 talk

Col. William Lamb and wife Daisy; silver epergne (Fort Fisher State Historic Site) and sketch of Banshee

It’s been said Col. William Lamb, commander of the Confederacy’s Fort Fisher, was a blockade runner’s best friend.

His garrison, based at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, safeguarded the vital port of Wilmington, N.C. The city was an important destination for ships that dared to run past the Union blockade, risking gunfire or running aground. Lamb’s troops and artillery provided cover fire for those missions.

Among the scores of vessels that made the journey was the English-made Banshee, which was made especially for the job. Banshee made eight successful runs to Wilmington before it was captured offshore in November 1863 – by then, its investors had made seven times their investment.

The vessel’s owner, the Anglo-Confederate Trading Co., commissioned a silver epergne, or table centerpiece, to show appreciation to Lamb for his efforts to safeguard efforts to supply the resource-starved Confederacy. The officer wasn’t a professional engineer, but he made Fort Fisher a formidable bastion.

The privately owned lavish piece, which features a cannon, four Confederate flags, a Palmetto tree and a replica of Banshee, is the subject of a talk this coming Monday by Ray Flowers, an interpreter and historian at Fort Fisher State Historic Site. His 7 p.m. presentation will be held at the Federal Point History Center in Carolina Beach. The epergne will not be present.

Flowers (at right, with artifact) is passionate about the piece’s impressive combination of art and utility.

“Without a doubt, this is the most extraordinarily phenomenal single artifact, pertinent to Fort Fisher that will ever grace this property,” Flowers wrote in an email to the Picket.

“It is a tangible monument of Fort Fisher post commandant William Lamb's vigilance in maintaining the lifeline of the Confederacy, as he would come to be recognized as the ‘Guardian Angel of Blockade-Running.’ This exquisite trophy is emblematic of both the success of this smuggling operation as well as the potentially lucrative nature of the venture.”

It's a fancy dinnerware piece with a cause

I had never heard of an epergne before researching this post, and I still have difficulty spelling it.

Epergne is a French word for “saving,” with the idea of placing small dishes of food  on a stand in the central part of the dining table so that guests wouldn’t have to spend time passing dishes. Unlike a “lazy Susan,” the base does not revolve. Sometimes, small candies or candles might be featured.

The artifact has made four one-day appearances at Fort Fisher but has never been on display for an extended time, said park officials, adding they would like to see it there again.

The epergne was made by Elkington & Co. of Birmingham, England, said Flowers. (Click photo to enlarge)

“Lamb was presented with a photo of the promised centerpiece in December 1864, shortly before the fort fell in mid-January 1865. Fortunately, he did not gain possession until 1866.”

By then, the war was over and the colonel had been released from brief confinement. A native of Norfolk, Va., the soldier returned there after the Civil War and was active in business and politics.

The inscription at the base reads: "Presented to Colonel William Lamb, C.S.A. commanding at Fort Fisher, North Carolina, by the owners of the steamship ‘Banshee’ in recognition of the eminent service and valuable assistance at all times so continuously rendered during the period she was engaged in trading between Nassau and Wilmington from May to November 1863."

This Englishman lived for adventure, riches

One of Fort Fisher's formidable guns after its capture (Library of Congress)

While blockade running occurred at ports across the Confederacy, the epicenter was Wilmington, which depended on Fort Fisher. Union land and naval forces attacked the sentinel twice before it fell in early 1865, and the loss was crippling to the South.

Owners and captains of the blockade runners had a massive risk and reward balancing act during Fort Fisher’s existence.

Among the most enterprising was English-born Thomas “Tom” E. Taylor (below).

In 1862, the Anglo-Confederate Trading Co. employed the 21-year-old as their "supercargo," (owner's representative). “All told, they operated or owned 15 vessels engaged in blockade-running. Taylor himself ran the blockade 28 times, 26 of the 28 were either in-or-out of Wilmington,” said Flowers.

Taylor has been described as both a thrill seeker and opportunist.

“Although sympathetic to the South’s cause and her struggle for independence, Taylor put his vessel and his life in harm’s way not for patriotism, but for the enormous profits that could be accrued by successfully running the Federal blockade,” wrote Confederate navy author R. Thomas Campbell in a 2007 issue of Military Heritage magazine.

In his 1896 memoirs, “Running the Blockade: A Personal Narrative of Adventure, Risks, and Escapes during the American Civil War,” Taylor wrote extensively about the Banshee, detailing one attempt in which several Federal gunboats fired upon the vessel as it neared the protection of Fort Fisher.

“Their shots were soon dropping close around us: an unpleasant sensation when you know you have several tons of gunpowder under your feet,” wrote Taylor, who became friends with Lamb. Blockade runners carried both military and civilian goods.

Notwithstanding the loss of the Banshee by capture, “she earned sufficient on the eight successful round trips which she made to pay her shareholders 700 per cent on their investment,” he said.

Sixteen of the side-wheel Banshee’s 17 trips to Rebel ports had been successful.

The U.S. Navy, ironically, used the captured ship in the first attempt on Fort Fisher, before assigning it to the Potomac Flotilla in Chesapeake Bay.

Commander's wife was there during attack

Flowers said Lamb, who was in his late 20s during the war, was the architect and commander of the “grandest, single sea-coast sandcastle in the Confederacy.”

He called Wilmington the last gateway on the Eastern Seaboard to the outside world as “the fortunes of the neophyte nation were moored to the docks of the port city's harbor. This story requires no exaggeration or embellishment; it is also leavened by an incredible love story, as Lamb's Northern-born wife, Daisy, shared the victories and vicissitudes of that war with him as they coupled beneath their star-crossed banner on Confederate Point.”

Daisy, born Sarah Anne Chaffee in Rhode Island, lived in a small cottage near Fort Fisher (above, photo Fort Fisher).

Lamb was severely wounded and captured when Fort Fisher fell to Union forces on Jan. 15, 1865, after a stalwart defense. The wounds he received during the final assault would leave him on crutches for seven years, according to NCpedia. (Daisy escaped capture.)

The Lambs, who had three children, subsequently moved to Virginia. Daisy died at age 54 in 1892. William was 73 when he passed in 1909.

The epergne remained in possession of the Lamb family until last year, said Flowers. “Hopefully, it will go on temporary display here at the new visitor center by the end of the year, or soon after.” (Above, inscription at base, Fort Fisher)

The new owner may make the artifact a gift to the state upon his passing, officials said.

The program on Col. Lamb and the silver epergne is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 17, at the Federal Point History Center, 1121 N. Lake Park Blvd., Carolina City, N.C. Parking is at Carolina Beach Town Hall across from Dollar General. Call 910-458-0502 or 910-251-7351 for more information.