§ B ffl&Ul BLOCKADE RUNNING HOOPER mm* Psli Hi HjfiJJBfijJj EJIJfijKfij 1 mm I ' ■ i WW BLOCKADE-RUNNING. By W.R. Hooper. Harper * s Dec. 1870. Library of The University of North Carolina COLLECTION OF NORTH CAROLINIANA ENDOWED BY JOHN SPRUNT HILL of the Class of 1889 3>3?0,7S-Hie w JO - OH •; ■■■ MAR 9/1 Ah FOR USE ONLY IN )RTH CAROLINA COLLECTION lOFe 22Sepf \ 30t W/2 BLOCKADE-RUNNING. g^-foty/ 105 BLOCKADE-RUNNING. THE labors of our brave sailors during the late war have not received that attention which their merits deserve. So numerous and so near at home were the battles — we kept our eyes so steadily fixed on the armies that trav- eled up and down under different leaders be- tweenWashington and Richmond — that we have hardly done justice to the work of the navy. Yet the blockade of the Southern coast on so short a notice, and with so small an armament to begin with, is one of the wonders of the nineteenth century. A coast line of 3549 stat- ute miles, longer than the whole coast of Eu- rope from Cape Trafalgar to Cape North, the longest line of blockade ever attempted, was by no means the chief difficulty. That low and sandy line of coast before the Southern States is pierced by 189 openings for commerce, equal- ly open to smuggling. Our Southern coast is double-fronted : one view looks out upon the broad Atlantic; the other westward upon a long line of internal water-communication — bays, channels, rivers, lagoons, swamps, that pierce the land in all directions. Storms will so change the shifting sands of each bar that the channel of to-day will sometimes become the dry land of to-morrow. And all along that coast dwelt a population keenly alive to the pe- cuniary advantage of successfully welcoming the English stranger ; happily triumphant when it could deceive or destroy the Yankee invader. When Mr. Lincoln proclaimed the blockade in April, 1861, it caused a remarkable inequal- ity of prices. On one side of the Atlantic were thousands of bales of cotton, which was rising in price over all the world except in the South- ern States ; and on the other side were powder and guns, coffee and tea, medicines and woolen goods, begging to be exchanged for this very cotton ; and the only separation between these goods was that paper proclamation. A single cargo that could enter those forbidden ports was a fortune in itself. To evade that procla- mation all the skill, all the greed, all the nau- tical science of Great Britain were called into requisition. The fires of the ship-yards of London and the Clyde roared with unwonted activity to supply the great demand for swift- sailing vessels. Success would pay larger pre- miums than were ever attained by any legiti- mate business in the world's commercial history ; fully equal to the profits realized from Spanish galleons by the Drakes and Erohishers of the Elizabethan age ; nearly equal to the profits of the slave-trade. To win this success English seamen entered into the perilous but lucrative service with alacrity. The price of steamers rose with great rapidity — what matter if a thousand pounds too much were paid for the vessel? a successful trip would realize tens of thousands. The London Times of November 25, 18C3, says that three fine steamers had that week been sold to run the blockade : the Cale- donia ; the Iona, that sold for $100,000 ; and the Fairy, that had been used by Prince Alfred in his trip round the Scottish coast — three of the best steamers built on the Clyde. The vessel that royalty had hardly ceased to use was now employed to break the laws of a friendly power. All three of them had ministered to the enjoy- ment of travelers during the season, and were none the better for their summer's wear; but their second-hand prices brought more than their original cost. Two more steamers were building at that time for the same purpose. " Should the demand," says the Times, " con- tinue at this rate, there will soon be scarcely a swift steamer left on the Clyde. The steam- boat owners never before had such a harvest, some of their steamers having been sold for nearly double their original cost, and that after a season's use." In December the same paper relates that a new steamer, the Greyhound, hav- ing developed unexpected speed on her trial trip, Liverpool and Manchester were both after her within three days, and she finally went to Liverpool, having realized a high price. But her speed only brought ruin to her new owners. She was captured by the United States steamer Connecticut, and sold with her cargo for about half a million of dollars. The capture of the bark Springbok was one of the first that called public attention to the legal results of the blockade. This vessel, British built and owned, left London for Nas- sau in December, 18G2, and was captured the following Eebruary, one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles east of Nassau. Her clear- ance was legal, she was sailing between two English ports, and apparently on legitimate business. ."If she intended to violate the laws of the United States, it could only be subse- quent to her present voyage. But on her cap- ture a large part of her cargo was found to be contraband of war. There were 50,000 navy buttons, stamped C. S. N., evidently intended 106 HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. for the Confederate States navy ; there were 80,000 army buttons, marked for the infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Besides these were army clothing, cavalry swords, brogans, navy boots, etc. Brought into New York and there presented for prize, the court decreed that the contraband articles were evidently intended for the use of the enemy. The vessel and her cargo were, therefore, confiscated and sold. During all the war Wilmington, in North Carolina, was the great depot of the blockade- running trade. Every effort was made by the navy to crush the business that centred here ; but it was found impossible. A curious in- stance of this was seen on the day of the pow- der explosion off Fort Fisher. On the 23d of December, 1864, one of the largest fleets, if not the largest, ever animated by one purpose, on this side the Atlantic, the American Armada of the nineteenth century, stood in toward the fort, bound for its capture or destruction. There were about fifty men-of-war and seventy- five transports, and among them was the gun- boat Louisiana, stored with two hundred and fifteen tons of powder, every barrel with its head out and its fuse in. How to bring this vessel, with its fiery cargo, safely under the walls of the fort, without having it blown up in advance by the guns of the fort, was the ques- tion of the day. " This," says Admiral Porter, " Commander Bhind was enabled to do, owing to a blockade-runner going in right ahead of him, the fort making the blockade-runner sig- nals, which they also did to the Louisiana." Here were one hundred and twenty-five men- of-war and transports, their only object to stop smuggling, and one saucy steamer passing through them all, and being made the uncon- scious pilot of the powder-laden gun-boat that was to blow the fort out of existence. It is needless to inform our readers that the gun- boat blew up, but that the fort did not. On both sides it was acknowledged that the capture of Fort Fisher would be the turning- point of blockade-running ; and to stop this was to cut off the South from the rest of the world. This fort, Admiral Porter said, " was much stronger than the famous Malakoff. " But, like Malakoff, it fell. Just prior to its destruction Bear-Admiral Porter wrote to the Department: "Blockade-running seems almost as brisk as ever, and, I suppose, will continue so as long as it is remunerative. The new class of blockade-runners are very fast, and sometimes come in and play around our vessels ; they are built entirely for speed. Within the last fifty days we have captured and destroyed five million five hundred thousand dollars' worth of enemy's property in blockade-runners. To submit to these losses and still run the blockade shows the immense gains the runners make and the straits the enemy are in." Truly it must have been a profitable business to be able to lose one hundred and ten thousand dollars a day for fifty days, as the Bear-Admiral writes, and still remain lucrative. In January of the same year Bear- Admiral Lee informs the Navy Department of the destruction of the steamers Ranger and Vesta, and adds, " The Department will perceive that this is the twenty-second steamer lost by the rebels and the blockade- runners attempting to violate the blockade of Wilmington within the last six months, an aver- age of nearly one steamer every eight days." The rapidity with which these vessels were captured or destroyed during the last part of the war attests no less the vigilance of our sailors than the boldness with which it was at- tempted to run the blockade. What a life of adventure and watchfulness that was on board the blockading squadron ! What hopes of prize- money ! what eager chases of a flying enemy ! Follow the career of one of the ships of that squadron ; take the Sassacus for instance — and we only select her because her name is so prom- inent in the reports before us. On the morn- ing of the 1st of February, 1864, her crew de- scry black smoke curling up from the lonely beach at the mouth of Stump Inlet. Sailing down upon the steamer from which the smoke issued, her crew are seen busily engaged in throwing overboard her cargo, a portion of which was already scattered along the beach ; for they preferred its ruin to its capture. A few guns dispersed her crew, and she was then boarded and found to be the Wild Dayrell, but two days out from Nassau. Every attempt was made to get her off, but in vain ; and final- ly the Sassacus and her companion-steamer, the Florida, fired into her, and destroyed both vessel and cargo, the latter alone valued at $200,000. The next morning smoke is again seen rising in the distance, and soon the chase commences of a vessel whose crew speedily endeavor to lighten her by throwing over the cargo. A few 100-pound rifle shot soon stop her oceanward career, and conscious of com- ing destruction, she turns and heads for the beach. Taken possession of by the boats of the Sassacus, she proves to be the iron steam- er Nuffield, 750 tons burden — one of the last and best steamers out of the Thames. She was laden with an assorted cargo of merchan- dise, munitions of war, Enfield rifles, pig-lead, and a battery of eight Whitfield rifled guns. Finding it impossible to draw her off the beach or to save her cargo, she, too, was fired into and destroyed. Two days after, another steamer is discovered and beached. It was the steamer Dee, so far driven up on the land that she, too, was fired into and destroyed, with all her val- uable cargo. On board of her were found a number of valuable books directed to Jeff Davis. Four days later the Florida saw another steamer passing in, the side-wheeler Fannk and Jessie, commanded by a notorious blockade-run- ner, Captain Coxetta. Driving her on to the beach, a hopeless wreck, her captain drowned in his endeavor to escape, another steamer was discovered, which subsequently proved to be the Emily, with a cargo of merchandise and salt. BLOCKADE-RUNNING. 107 She was also fired and destroyed. Here in ten days five steamers were destroyed at one spot. The cargoes were all consumed in the same flames that hurned the vessels. The Fannie and Jessie, the Emily, and the Nuffield were new vessels, and their destruction probably ruined their owners. The Wild Dap-ell had made one successful voyage, which more than paid her cost. The Dee was an old offender. Whenever the blockade-runner could not escape, every effort was made to destroy her, generally by wrecking her on the nearest beach. The London Times, all whose sympathies were with the South during the rebellion, and who regarded it as the worst of all fates to fall into the hands of the United States government, says : "The risk to the commander is fearful, as Federal cruisers are most dangerous to en- counter. The instructions to commanders of blockade-runners are to beach their ships rath- er than let them be captured by the Federals. When there is no chance for the escape of the ship at night, the crew scuttle her and escape, if possible, in the boats ; before the Federals can board the scuttled ship she is very often water-logged and sunk." The Times says that the pay to the commander is very high, propor- tionate to the risk he runs and the profits he is expected to make. A round trip from Ber- muda or Nassau pays the captain £S00 ($4000), besides the privilege of purchasing twelve bales of cotton for £15 a bale, worth £75 at Liver- pool. Two trips can he made "each moon" from Nassau, one from Bermuda; so that for his fortnight's successful voyage from Nassau the captain realizes $7600 ! The Times sub- sequently prints a letter from the captain of the steamer Banshee, who succeeded in making his escape, but at the expense of his deck load : "We left Wilmington September 21; at 5.30 on the 22d discovered a large steamer about two miles off. This fellow gave us a tremen- dous chase. At first, when the water was smooth, we gained on him ; it then came on to blow, and he got his sails to bear, and came tip with Vis. I thought I saw New York in prospective. We then threw over part of our deck load, and went away from him. The wind increased almost to a gale, and he came up again. We then put her head to the sea, and threw the remainder of the deck load off, which lightened her, and we gained steadily, and lost him at 7.30 p.m., after a chase of four- teen hours ; and right glad I was to see him stop. There never was such a chase except the Nashville by the -Keystone State, and we should most surely have been taken if we had not lightened her." The chase of such a blockade-runner as this was always a scene of intense excitement to every person on board ; pride, patriotism, and pocket were all appealed to. These steamer's were richly laden, and their capture put half the value of vessel and cargo into the pockets of the captors. England was very unpopular with the marine, and England had built and manned every one of these illegal traders ; their capture touched the purses of English mer- chants. They were built expressly for speed ; and to capture them it was first necessary to overhaul them by superior speed. All these vessels were so built as to deceive ; they were very long, low in the water, quite narrow, and painted a dull, neutral color, so as not to catch the eye of the watching sailor. They burned a coal that emitted no smoke. As if conscious of their illegal errand, they tried to hide them- selves and their work in the obscurity of dark- ness. To see, chase, overhaul, and capture them, thus benefiting at once the country and their own pockets, was the eager desire of ev- ery American sailor. And in the four years of the blockade one thousand six hundred cap- tures, of every description, from the empty boat from which the oars had been lost to the mag- nificent steamer but just launched on her first voyage, attest the skill, the energy, and the watchfulness of cur brave marine. When the capture was made the vessel was • sent, under the charge of a prize crew, to some, neighboring port, generally Key West, Phila- delphia, New York, or Boston. Soon after the proceedings commenced it was found that the expenses of the trial were very different at the several ports. Congressional investigation de- veloped the fact that at Boston costs amount- ed to 5.83 per cent., at Philadelphia to 14.00 per cent., and at New York to 15.39 per cent. ; so that it cost three times as much to procure justice and condemnation at New York as at Boston. The great object of the lawyers em- ployed by the English owners was so to delay the sale that the expenses should be so large that neither the government nor the captors should realize any money out of it ; their ill . wind should blow no good to any one else. The Louisa Aijres was brought into New York laden with fish, and within twenty-four hours Mr. Smith, the United States District - Attorney, moved for an order of sale, on the ground that the fish would not keep. The counsel for the late owners came into court with a long array of affidavits from parties who swore that the fish were not perishing, but would keep any rea- sonable time ; the motion for an immediate sale was therefore denied. Soon after the Brooklyn Board of Health notified the Prize Commissioners that, if the fish were not re- moved, they would have them cleared out as a nuisance. The cargo was thereupon ordered to be sold, but did not pay expenses, only realizing $ 105, when the invoice price was $5000. When the Stettin was captured and brought into port, her old crew quietly flooded the cargo with salt- water to its destruction. The Hiawatha was sent to New York, where the United States Marshal permitted one of its owners, named Potts, to keep charge of it, As soon as it was in his hands Potts shipped to Liverpool 250 of its packages of tobacco, valued at $25,000. Just before the goods were to be sold under a decree of condemnation the tobacco was discovered to 108 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. be missing. The sale was therefore adjourn- ed ; and before it finally took place the remain- ing articles had so risen in value as to more than replace the twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of abstracted tobacco. The laws that regulate the condemnation of prizes provide that all who join in the capture shall share in the proceeds ; and that all shall be considered as aiding in the capture who are within signal distance. The captor generally gets half the avails of the property sold, both of ship and cargo — government the other half. The proceeds, after payment of expenses, are divided among the captors in proportion to their pay and rank. The commanding officer of the squadron gets one-twentieth, or five per cent. ; the fleet captain receives one-hundredth, or one per cent. ; but if the capture is made by a single vessel, her commander gets one-tenth. When the Hope was captured by the little tug the Eolus, off Wilmington, October 22, 1864, the acting-master of the latter won $13,164 85 for his day's work. The assistant-engineer re- ■ceived from that single prize $6657, or more than four years' pay. The seamen obtained over a thousand dollars apiece ; while the very cabin-boy, whose pay was less than two dollars and a half a week, won $532 60 for his share. But the lucky Eolus also assisted, nine days later, in capturing the steamer Lady Sterling ; and the Lady Sterling and her cargo sold for $509,354 64. Each of the acting-ensigns of the Eolus received $9589 67 from the Sterling, making about twenty-three thousand dollars prize-money for their ten days' work. The seamen each received two thousand in addition to the thousand they had pocketed nine days before from the Hope. It was a fortunate cap- ture, that of the Lady Sterling, and shows how uncertain it is whether the smuggler shall make a fortune for its owners or its captors. When she came down the river, soon after dusk, she was happily noticed by one of the blockading squadron that was not near enough to stop her, but that sent up signal rockets to warn the rest of the fleet that a blockade-runner was going out. The Calypso and the Eolus saw these rockets and sailed in ; and as the Sterling came sweeping by under as full a head of steam as the best of coal and oil could produce, the Calypso poured a full broadside into her, every shot striking and setting her on fire. But the Lady swept on. The vessel and her cargo were worth eight hundred thousand dollars, and her captain could not voluntarily yield that value to the Yankees. Eor three hours the Sterling sailed southward along the shore, followed by the Calypso and the Eolus a little farther off from land, but near enough for the six glasses on board the Calypso to scan every movement on board the burning steamer. After a chase of about thirty-five miles, varied by a few guns at long bowls, the Lady Sterling turned round, hoping to escape by doubling on her tracks. But the movement only brought her into the jaws of the Eolus. A broadside was once more poured in as she turned ; and finding it impos- sible to escape, she surrendered. The fire had then obtained almost complete possession of the cargo ; but by throwing over the 180 bales of burning cotton the vessel was brought into port and court, and, damaged as she was, sold for over half a million of dollars. When the Magnolia, on the last day of July, 1862, captured the Memphis, with her cargo of cotton and resin, she was so fortunate that no other vessel was in sight. No complaint was made with the Ancient Mariner that they were "Alone, alone— all, all alone — Alone on a wide, wide sea." For there was no other vessel to divide the more than half a million of dollars that that hour fell into their clutches. The lieutenant of the Magnolia received $38,318 55 for his single share of that day's work. Each ordinary seaman won over seventeen hundred dollars. During the war one thousand six hundred captures were made. Of these less than eight hundred have been condemned and their pro- ceeds paid over. Yet these captures realized at auction more than twenty-five millions of dol- lars. As much property was destroyed as was captured ; so that it is safe to say that the loss of the blockade-runners was over fifty millions of dollars. The success of the blockade on the part of government was one of the great facts of the late war. It was the largest block- ade ever attempted, and it was thorough. In a semi-official communication to Lord Russell, Mr. Mason called the attention of the Premier to the continued violation of the blockade by the runners. Lord Russell replied by naming to the representative of the Confederate pow- ers the different prices that prevailed on the two sides of the blockading fleet. At Charles- ton, cotton was in abundance at eight and ten cents a pound, and tens of millions of pounds waiting to be sold ; at Nassau, only eight-and- forty hours away, it was worth over"a dollar, and the manufacturing world was hungry for it. The benefit of this smuggling to the South- ern cause was incalculable. The business it carried into the South, the life and activity it brought, the news it told and carried away, the sympathy it communicated, the money it left behind, all these were sinews of war, without which that war must have ceased-fjom twelve to twenty-four months earlier than it did. The intercourse furnished by the blockade-runners was the connecting link between the Southern Confederacy and the outer world ; substantial evidence of the sympathy of other and older nations. It was of as much moral value as material ; it cheered and encouraged the South- ern heart, that would otherwise have felt ostra- cized from the family of nations. 41 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 00032743069 FOR USE ONLY IN THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION H ^lllf 'MM I wm «a •sun sail 111 I KM