The U.S. ship MILWAUKIE, or MILWAUKEE, as the name is usually (although not invariably) spelled, 738 tons, was built at Yarmouth, Maine, in 1853. She was originally registered at New Haven, Connecticut, and was registered at New York on 16 June 1858. I know very little about the vessel's career, except that in 1854, H. S. Soule, master, she made two voyages from Havre to New York carrying German immigrants, and in the same year she was advertised as running in the Merchants' Line of coastal packets between New York and New Orleans.

Sources: Forrest R. Holdcamper, comp.,List of American-flag Merchant Vessels that received Certificates of Enrollment or Registry at the Port of New York, 1789-1867 (Record Groups 41 and 36), National Archives Publication 68-10, Special Lists 22 (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Service, 1968), p. 481; Germans to America, vol. 6, 453-455, and vol. 8, pp. 336-338; Carl C. Cutler, Queens of the Western Ocean; The Story of America's Mail and Passenger Sailing Lines (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, c1961), p. 509.

The freight steamer (Frachtdampfer) MINOS (Signal Code QCBD), was built for the Bremen firm of Gerhard Lange & Co by the shipwright Johann Lange, Vegesack/Grohn, and was launched on 1 August 1864. 53 Commerzlasten / 118 tons register; 31,8 x 7,1 x 2,8 meters (length x breadth x depth of hold). The MINOS was the first ocean-going steam vessel built by Lange, although he had previously built several river steamers and an iron steam tug. The MINOS had been built to draw little water, to enable her to sail up the Weser River as far as Vegesack or even Bremen (the Weser was so silted that, despite dredging, steamers used in the transatlantic trade could sail up the river only as far as Brake). Captains of the MINOS were, in turn, Christoph Lange, Hermann Hinrich Christoffers, Hermann Jantzen, and Martin Bernhard Jordemann. The ship was employed primarily (although not exclusively) in the trade with England, sailing from the Weser with livestock, and returning with coal from northern England or Scotland, or with china clay from Par, in Cornwall.

At the beginning of the the war between Prussia and France in 1870, the MINOS was sold British, a colorable sale to exempt her from the depredations of the French navy; the intention was to return her to Bremen registry upon the conclusion of hostilities, but she was wrecked before they ceased.

The Weser-Zeitung for 9 January 1871, gives the following report of the wreck of the MINOS on Dogger Bank:

Am 19. December ging der MINOS mit einer Ladung Steinkohlen von Burntisland in See, verlor am 23. December bei schwerem Sturm die Schraube, brach bald darauf die Welle und hatte bereits 2 Fuß Wasser im Raum, als er am 24. December dem Dampfer GIPSY QUEEN, Nash, von West Harlepool, begegnete. Der Versuch dieses Dampfers, den MINOS zu bergen, mißlang, da die Schlepptaue brachen. Das Boot des MINOS war zerschlagen, und gelang es einem Boot der GIPSY QUEEN, den Capt. Jordemann und seine aus sechs Personen bestehende Mannschaft mit Lebensgefahr zu retten. ... Der Dampfer MINOS wurde allerdings bei Beginn des deutsch-französischen Krieges unter englische Flage gebracht, hörte aber nicht auf, für Bremer Rechnung zu fahren, und es dürfte daher Sache der deutschen Behörde sein, dem Capt. Nash und den leuten von der GIPSY QUEEN für diese Lebensrettung aus Seegefahr die übliche Anerkennung zu Theil werden zu lassen.

In due course, the Weser-Zeitung for 11 June 1871 reports:

Dem Capitän Nash, vom Dampfer GIPSY QUEEN aus Hartlepool (West), wurde als Anerkennung für die brave Rettung der Mannschaft des Bremer Dampfers MINOS am 23. December v.J. in der Nordsee von dem deutschen Consul in Hartlepool im Namen des deutschen Kaisers eine goldene Uhr, auf welcher der kaiserliche Namenszug nebst Krone gravirt, übergeben, so wie dem Steuermann 5 Pfund und vier Matrosen Jedem 3 Pfund ausgezahlt.

Source: Peter-Michael Pawlik, Von der Weser in die Welt; Die Geschichte der Segelschiffe von Weser und Lesum und ihrer Bauwerften 1770 bis 1893, Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, Bd. 33 (Hamburg: Kabel, c1993), pp. 241-242, no. 262.