Flamingo was one of the striking, three-stacked, sloop-rigged steamers, usually painted white to obscure their movements at night through the blockade, which were delivered to the Confederacy's order in the United Kingdom-very likely on the Clyde-sometime in 1864; they were negotiated by Comdr. James D. Bulloch, in close correspondence with Navy Secretary Mallory. Flamingo was one of the largest type of blockade runners placed by the Confederate Navy in foreign yards.
Sailing from Glasgow under Captain T. Atkinson in July, she put in at Queenstown in nearby Northern Ireland and at Ponta Delgada in the Azores before beginning her runs into Wilmington, N.C., with high priority cargoes. Flamingo suffered a serious setback probably for several weeks or longer in the autumn: she was at Bermuda in September, along with her sister, Ptarmigan, while their crews battled yellow fever.
While two of her last runs in 1865 were into the Gulf, Flamingo must have attempted one more into Charleston, for a contemporary Coast Survey chart shows the wreck of a Flamingo off Battery Rutledge on the north side of Charleston harbor.
