This ship-rigged steamer was the "Savannah,"
and the bold projector of this experiment of
sending a steamboat across the Atlantic was Daniel
Dodd. The Savannah was built in New York, by
Francis Ficket, for Mr. Dodd. Stephen Vail, of
Morristown, New Jersey, built her engines, and
on the 22d of August, 1818, she was launched,
gliding gracefully into the element which was to
bear her to foreign lands, there to be crowned
with the laurels of success. On May 25th this
purely American-built vessel left Savannah, and
glided out from this waste of marshes, under
the command of Captain Moses Rogers, with
Stephen Rogers as navigator. The port of New
London, Conn., had furnished these able seamen.

The steamer reached Liverpool June 20th, the
passage having occupied twenty-six days, upon
eighteen of which she had used her paddles. A
son of Mr. Dodd once told me of the sensation
produced by the arrival of a smoking vessel on
the coast of Ireland, and how Lieutenant John
Bowie, of the king's cutter Kite, sent a boat-load
of sailors to board the Savannah to assist her
crew to extinguish the fires of what his Majesty's
officers supposed to be a burning ship.

The Savannah, after visiting Liverpool,