10th for blockading duty off Wilmington, North Carolina. Shortly before dawn on the 27th, she helped destroy blockade-running steamer Modem Greece which that Union blockader had run aground. On 24 August, Stars and Stripes captured British ship Mary Elizabeth attempting to slip into Wilmington with a cargo of salt and fruit. The wear and tear of hard duty forced Stars and Stripes to sail, via Norfolk, Virginia, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for repairs. She was decommissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard on 14 September. Quickly restored to a serviceable condition, the ship was recommissioned on 29 September and was assigned to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. The steamer reached Key West, Florida, and spent the remainder of the Civil War operating off the gulf coast of Florida. Highlights of her service in 1863 included capturing sloop Florida at St. Marks Bay, Florida, laden with cotton and tar on 3 June; the expedition of boat crews from the steamer and to Marsh Island, Florida, to destroy salt and salt works on 15 July; and the destruction under heavy fire of blockade-running schooner Caroline Gertrude aground on the bar at the mouth of the Ochlockonee River on 29 December. In 1864, she captured blockade-running steamer Laura off the Ochlockonee on 18 January; she destroyed an extensive Confederate fishery at Marsh Island on 19 and 20 October and captured the troops stationed there as guards; and she joined three other gunboats in an expedition on 3 December which destroyed extensive salt works at Rocky Point in Tampa Bay. After the end of the Civil War, Stars and Stripes sailed north and was decommissioned at Philadelphia on 30 June 1865. She was sold at public auction there on 10 August 1865 to Thomas Watson and Sons of New York City. Later career Stars and Stripes was redocumented on 18 September 1865 as Metropolis. The ship operated in merchant service until, while steaming from Philadelphia to Pará, Brazil, she was wrecked on the outer bar of Currituck Beach, North Carolina, on the evening of 31 January 1878. Both the ship and her cargo were a total loss. 85 persons lost their lives. References Ships of the Union Navy Ships built in Mystic, Connecticut Steamships of the United States Navy Gunboats of the United States Navy American Civil War patrol vessels of the United States Shipwrecks of the Carolina coast Maritime incidents in January 1878