Millitary chest of drawersSOLD

This is a piece of history for you, this was the personel property of Thomas M Crossan between the 1830's to 1865, his name is crudely carved into the top of the base section, he was a rather remarkable Lieutenant in the North Carolina Navy ( his story follows) . these were taken on campaign on ships in this case it is also stamped with Gunnery  lieutenant port cabin no 5.

The chest is actually American as the Harley and Co locks confirm, identical to the British chest of that time, all very solid made out of mainly different types of mahogany and pine, the ressesed handles saved them getting broken when it was  transferred, very often they had a canvas bag cover to protect them, and the turned feet would unscrew and be put in the drawers.

size : 91cm x 50cm x 106cm.

Thomas M. Crossan

Crossan, unlike Wilkinson and Maffit, was an officer of the North Carolina Navy rather than the Confederate Navy. He purchased a steamer in England for the state at the direction of Governor Zebulon Vance, the Lord Clyde. She was renamed the Advance, and she and several other runners were owned by the state. Governor Vance took special pride in "his" navy, and all cargoes on the state's runners were the property of North Carolina and not the Confederate government.

Crossan ran the Advance through the blockade eighteen times, and for more than a year his arrivals and departures from Wilmington and Bermuda were conducted with time-table regularity. He boldly took her through in broad daylight on one occasion, catching the Federal blockading fleet napping. In late 1864, he was captured when the Advance, burning poor-quality coal and running too slowly, was overhauled by the Union cruiser Santiago de Cuba.

Many blockade runner captains were British naval officers "temporarily retired from service," usually operating under assumed names. Some of the most notable were W.N.W. Hewett, who later became a vice admiral in the Royal Navy; a man known only as "Murray," who became Admiral Murray-Aynsley; and most famous of all, Captain "Roberts" of the Don, who was in fact Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden, the third son of the sixth Earl of Buckinghamshire, and who went on to serve in the Turkish fleet-- given the title of Pasha by the Sultan, he is better known to history as Hobart Pasha, one of the heroes of British naval tradition.