The Bremen bark UNION was built at Burg (now Bremen-Burg) by J. H. Bosse, and was launched on 6 September 1854. 181 Commerzlasten / 408 tons register; 36,2 x 8,7 x 4,6 meters (length x beam x depth of hold). (It is interesting to note that the LEIBNITZ, whose crew the UNION saved in 1862, was also built by J. H. Bosse, in 1848). Her original owners were the Bremen firm of Konitzky & Thiermann (3/8), her captain, Johann Horstmann, of Vegesack (3/8), and Johann Köper (1/8) and Jürgen Meyer (1/8), both of Vegesack.

The UNION was employed chiefly in the emigrant trade. In 1863, she was sold to Engelbert Walte, of Bremen, and placed under the command of Johann Conrad Heinrich Eckenberg (1863-1864), then of Wilhelm Philipp August Picherl, both of Bremen. In 1865, she was sold again, to a Captain Berg, of Friedrichshald, Norway, who was sailing her until about 1872. Her ultimate fate is not known.

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), p. 392, no. 92.

The steamship UNITED STATES was built at New York by William H. Webb (hull 31) for a group of 33 persons headed by Charles H. Marshall, of the Black Ball Line of New York-Liverpool sailing packets; keel laid down on 30 January 1847, launched on 20 August 1847.

1,857 tons; 244 feet 7 inches x 40 feet x 30 feet 10 inches (length x breadth x depth of hold); wood construction, clipper bow, 1 funnel, 3 masts (barkantine rig, with topsails on the fore and mainmast and long poles permitting topgallants if necessary). 3 full decks from bow to stern, with orlop decks on either side of the machinery. Space for 860 tons of coal, carried on either side of the engines and on the orlop decks. On the main deck, 900 measurement tons of cargo space, part of which could if necessary be converted into staterooms; aft, cabin 70 feet long, for dancing and public entertainment. Directly above, on the main deck, dining saloon, with the best staterooms port and starboard; at the bow the sailor's quarters, and forward of the boilers a cabin with additional staterooms on either side. On the spar deck, from forward to aft, the anchor windlass, a scuttle leading to the forecastle, and a house covering the stair to the forward cabin; near the wheels, the mates' rooms, the fiddley, a skylight, and the crew's galley; a larger house providing lounging space and the companionway to the after saloon; at the stern another house containing a second entrance to the saloon, the steering wheel, and four water closets for the gentlemen passengers. 2 side-lever engines (T[heodosius] F. Secor & Co, New York), 80 inch bore by 9 foot stroke. Two side-paddle wheels, 34 feet 8 inches in diameter, with 2 paddles 8 feet 4 inches by 1 feet 8 inches mounted on opposite sides of each of the 28 arms. The wheels turned at 12 rpm, producing a service speed of 10 knots. Coal consumption 48 tons per day. Maximum draft, when fully loaded, 17 feet. No ballast or iron strapping required. 2 light- colored stripes along the hull, paddle boxes painted white above the sheer line, which reduced the high-sided appearance resulting from her great depth and low draft. Advertised passenger accommodation 100 in 1st class, 50 in 2nd class, but cabin plan shows only 128 available berths.

The UNITED STATES was the third American-built ocean-going steamship, and the first to be designed as such, with a counter stern and practically flat deadrise and bottom (the two earlier vessels merely adapted the hull form of a sailing packet to steam propulsion). A number of statements were published during her construction that the UNITED STATES was intended for service between New York and New Orleans, but this was most probably a ruse to disguise Marshall's real intent, to try a steamship on the North Atlantic in advance of his rival, Edward K. Collins, of the Dramatic Line, who was preparing, with the aid of a mail subsidy from the United States Postmaster, to launch his Collins Line, the first important American steamship line on the North Atlantic. By the time the UNITED STATES was completed her size alone made her an ocean steamship, not a coastwise one.

26 February and 14 March 1848, trials, under the command of Capt. William G. Hackstaff.

Cunard officials in Liverpool had found the presence of the UNITED STATES most unwelcome and had cut freight rates so drastically that she could find no freight for a profit. In the face of such cutthroat competition, Marshall abandoned Liverpool as the European terminus of his operation and substituted Havre.

Marshall and his colleagues had discovered that a single steamship running at two-month intervals and without a mail subsidy was too costly a venture, and as an experiment sent her on a single voyage to New Orleans.

Further sailings were advertised for March, May, and July 1849, but in February 1849 Marshall and his fellow co-owners received and accepted an offer from the Confederated German States to purchase the UNITED STATES for the sum of $265,000. William H. Webb, her builder, converted the UNITED STATES into a warship by removing her uppermost deck, reducing her rig, and arming her with three 25 centimeter pivot guns and eight 20 centimeter howitzers. Because of the war over Schleswig-Holstein the UNITED STATES sailed from New York for Liverpool on 31 May 1849 with an American crew under the command of Capt. Nathaniel Palmer; after running aground on Nantucket Shoals less than 24 hours out and after later damaging one of her boilers so badly that it had to be taken out of service, arrived at Liverpool on 16 June 1849. Boiler repaired and the vessel handed over to the Confederated German States which renamed her HANSA. She became the flagship of the Deutsche Reichsflotte, based at Brake, and commanded by Admiral Rudolf Brommy.

The Deutsche Reichsflotte was short-lived, and was disbanded by the German Bundestag on 2 April 1852. The ships of the Reichsflotte were then sold, the HANSA ex UNITED STATES being acquired together with the ERZHERZOG JOHANN (formerly the Cunard steamship ACADIA) on 16 March 1853 by the Bremen firm of W. A. Fritze & Co; shortly afterwards the Bremen merchant Carl Lehmkuhl acquired a half interest in both vessels. The HANSA was rebuilt as an emigration passenger vessel, with accommodation for 50 passengers in 1st class and 700 in steerage; crew of 70. Fritze and Lehmkuhl placed both vessels (the ERZHERZOG JOHANN ex ACADIA having been renamed GERMANIA) in service between Bremen and New York, in competition with the American-owned Ocean Steam Navigation Co's WASHINGTON and HERMANN.

The following year, the HANSA was chartered by the British Government to carry troops and supplies to the Crimea.

It was obvious that the wooden paddle-steamship HANSA could not compete with the iron screw steamships being built for the new Bremen and Hamburg services.

At the completion of this charter, the HANSA ex UNITED STATES was purchased on 19 May 1858 by John Orr Lever, MP, a Manchester businessman, who with a group of associates had established the Atlantic Steam Navigation Co, to run a steamship service between Galway, Halifax, and New York. The HANSA was renamed INDIAN EMPIRE (2,516 tons), and was inspected at Southampton on 29 May 1858 by a large number of guests. 13 June 1858, sailed from Southampton for Galway, where she struck a submerged rock upon entering the harbor.

The INDIAN EMPIRE ex HANSA ex UNITED STATES was not employed on the Galway route again, and nothing is known of her for the next three years. 1862, purchased by Z. C. Pearson of Hull, who brought her to the Thames for repairs. 23 July 1862, at anchor off Deptford, caught fire and badly gutted; both decks and masts were gone but the bowsprit, paddle boxes and stack remained; raised. 4 May 1866, after lying in the Victoria Dock, London, for several years, sprang a leak and sank.

Sources: Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark: University of Delaware Press, c1981), pp. 140-148 (cabin plans, lines and sail plan of the UNITED STATES); Noel Reginald Pixell Bonsor, North Atlantic Seaway; An Illustrated History of the Passenger Services Linking the Old World with the New (2nd ed.; Jersey, Channel Islands: Brookside Publications), vol. 1 (1975), pp. 193-194, 267-268; vol. 2 (1978), pp. 496-498, 505; Edwin L. Dunbaugh and William duBarry Thomas, William H. Webb: Shipbuilder (Glen Cove, New York: Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, 1989), pp. 39 (lithograph) and 169; Arnold Kludas, Die Geschichte der Deutschen Passagierschiffahrt, Bd. 1: Die Pionierjahre von 1850 bis 1890, Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, 22 (Hamburg: Kabel, c1986), pp. 15-17 (picture).

The U.S. ship UNIVERSE was built in 1850 for Williams & Guion's Black Star Line of sailing packets between New York and Liverpool. At least one secondary source (William Armstrong Fairburn, Merchant Sail [6 vols.; Center Lovell, Maine: Fairburn Marine Educational Foundation,   (1945-55)]) suggests that the UNIVERSE was built in New York by the celebrated shipwright William H. Webb, but there is no reference to her in either 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), or in Edwin L. Dunbaugh and William DuBarry Thomas, William H. Webb: Shipbuilder (Glen Cove, New York: Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, 1989). 1,297 tons, 186 ft 6 in x 38 ft 7 in x 28 ft 8 in (length x beam x depth of hold). She was often called a "clipper" by the contemporary press, but she was in fact a rather full-bodied vessel. The ship later passed into British ownership. She first appears in the annual volume of Lloyd's Register of Shipping for 1875/76: official number 48,816, international signal code VWJH, 1422/1422/1410 tons (gross/net/under deck), 185.6 x 38.9 x 28.2 ft (length x beam x depth of hold), owner J. H. Williams, jr., port of registry Liverpool. In the annual volume for 1877/78, the name of Williams is crossed out, and replaced with that of S. G. Jones. The annual volumes for 1878/79 through 1881/82 (the last to which I have immediate access) omit the name of the owner and the port of registry, suggesting that she had already been lost, hulked, or scrapped.