CSS Curlew was an iron-hull North Carolina Sounds paddlewheel steamboat that was taken into the Confederate Navy in 1861. It was run aground at Fort Forrest () and burned in the battle for Roanoke Island on February 8, 1862. Its wreck was discovered in 1988 and archaeologically investigated in 1994. The steamboat The Curlew was built in 1856 by the Harlan & Hollingsworth Iron Shipbuilding Company of Wilmington, Delaware. It was long, wide, depth of hold, and listed at 236 tons. Its average draft was , which suited the shallow waters of the North Carolina sounds. The steamboat had side paddle wheels that were in diameter by wide. The Curlew had no figurehead, a round stern, and no mast. A walking beam engine with a diameter cylinder and a stroke powered the new steamer. This type of engine had a distinctive trapezoid-shaped rocker arm mounted between the paddle wheels, which transmitted power from the piston rod to the crank on the paddle wheel shaft. For improved efficiency, the Curlew's engine was equipped with Sickle's patented cutoff valve. Steam was provided by a two furnace return-flue boiler long, high, and wide, and rated at 30 lbf/in² (210 kPa) of pressure. It started operating in North Carolina in July 1856. History The Curlew was built for Thomas D. Warren, a doctor and plantation owner from Edenton, North Carolina. It was operated for passenger and cargo transportation in the Albemarle Sound region, running between Edenton, Hertford, Elizabeth City and Nag's Head. The Curlew also made trips up the Chowan River to Franklin, Virginia. Its first captain was Richard Halsey, who was later replaced by Thomas Burbage in 1858. The Curlew made many trips to the Nag's Head Hotel, which in those days was a popular tourist destination. In 1859 Edward Bruce, an artist and reporter, rode the ship on a trip to Nag's Head and afterwards wrote about it for Harper's New Monthly Magazine. He singled out the Curlew and its crew for special praise: We never saw him (Captain Burbage) rave. Always at his post, and always quiet, everything went on like clockwork. No traveler accustomed to the privileged usage on many similar craft would have imagined that one of them could be so well managed with so little damage to the Third Commandment. After the Civil War broke out, the Curlew was initially used as a troop transport, ferrying troops and