Erik Heyl's Early American Steamers Vols 1 and 2 FREE Online

bschulte

Sergeant
Joined
Jul 31, 2005
Hey guys, while researching Union and Confederate Navy ships for my Siege of Petersburg site, I stumbled onto the fact that Erik Heyl's Early American Steamers, Volumes 1 and 2, are available in their entirety at the HathiTrust web site free of charge. For anyone who doesn't know, Heyl provides a 1 to 2 page roundup of early american steamships, including many which served in the Civil War. And he provides a drawing of each and every ship. I just purchased volumes 3-6 as well.

Here's the link: HathiTrust Index

Volume 1

Volume 2

I've attached some examples of the images Heyl drew. These books came out in the 1950s and 1960s. He did an AMAZING job of research. Many of the ships used as transports by the US War Dept are included here too. I never dreamed something like this existed.

EarlyAmericanSteamersVol1Page017AlleganyORNeptune.png


EarlyAmericanSteamersVol1Page021America1863.png


EarlyAmericanSteamersVol1Page237Malvern.png
 
Update on this. I bought all six volumes, and I hope to put an index to the books here in case anyone is interested in a specific vessel. I've scanned all of the Civil War related ships through the end of volume 3. Getting to the rest is going to take me a while.
 
Update on this. I bought all six volumes, and I hope to put an index to the books here in case anyone is interested in a specific vessel. I've scanned all of the Civil War related ships through the end of volume 3. Getting to the rest is going to take me a while.
Great resource; thank you for posting, and for your additional work.
 
Great resource; thank you for posting, and for your additional work.

You're welcome! I hope to be done with the index by the end ofthe week. Volumes 3-6 are completely indexed, and now I'm swinging back to volumes 1 and 2 to add the non-Civil War vessels.
 
Here is a complete index of Heyl's work, all six volumes. I've included the following:

1. Ship Name (Year Built-Year Lost)
2. Civil War Era Ship Name(s)
3. Volume
4. Pages
5. Notes on what the ship did
6. Did the ship participate in the Civil War

The complete file is attached. Also, here is a link to a permanent page for this index on my Siege of Petersburg site.
 

Attachments

  • Index to Early American Steamers Volumes 1 to 6 by Erik Heyl.zip
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