So, at last, the contraband traders were obliged to rely entirely on their ability as sneaks. The goods were sent to Nassau and Bermuda as before, though, meantime, Havana, Cuba, and Matamoras, Mexico, on the Rio Grande, were of considerable importance. Cargoes of Southern products were safe after reaching these ports, if cargoes of contraband goods en route to them were not. Moreover, there was a change in the forms of ships used that made these nearby ports absolutely necessary to the traffic; for soon after the blockading fleets became efficient the use of condemned ships as blockade-runners was abandoned and smaller and swifter vessels were adopted. The transition from these to vessels built especially to run between the islands and the Confederate ports was easy and was quickly made. The inventive talent of the traders was worthy of a better cause. Low and slender hulls, with the most powerful engines and twin screws or feathering paddles, were adopted. The paint used was of an obscuring color. There was no spar save that necessary to support a crow’s nest for the lookout. The one thing that they could not keep from betraying them, at the last, was the smoke, but at one time they burned anthracite coal, and they stopped using it only when the American government prohibited the export of it. As time passed and the strangulation caused by the blockade became more severe, the skill and ingenuity of the blockaders increased, so that the traffic never was stopped. There was, at one time, talk in Richmond of having the Confederate government take the traffic into its own hands absolutely, because of the demoralization caused by the illegitimate traders. They brought what they could sell at the most profit, of course. They brought liquors where medicines were needed, and silks and fancy slippers in place of the necessities of life for which the people suffered. It is a pity that the change was not made, for then one might have considered the blockade-runners with other feelings than disgust.
Nassau Schooners.
From a photograph by Rau.
But if the traffic never ceased absolutely, the constriction of the blockade was and is now manifest. It was so efficient that one can scarcely read of the effects produced by it in the South without tears. One can believe that the blockade was a merciful as well as a just measure of war in that it shortened the struggle more than any other measure, and so saved many lives on both sides; but it is a pitiful fact that those who suffered most from the effects of the blockade were the women and the little ones. There are many tiny graves in the South that were dug because the blockade excluded the medicines needed by the sick.
Lest the reader think the language used here regarding the foreign blockade-runners is too strong, a story told by one of them, Thomas E. Taylor (see p. 110, “Running the Blockade”), shall be given. Taylor was a leader in the business. He ran the first steel ship (the Banshee) built especially for the purpose. Among other vessels under his control was the Will-o’-the-Wisp. She was a wretched ship, and here is what he says:
“I found her a constant source of delay and expenditure and I decided to sell her. After having her cobbled up with plenty of putty and paint, I was fortunate enough to open negotiations with some Jews with a view to her purchase. Having settled all preliminaries, we arranged for a trial trip, and after a very sumptuous lunch I proceeded to run her over a measured mile for the benefit of the would-be purchasers. I need scarcely mention that we subjected her machinery to the utmost strain, bottling up steam to a pressure of which our present Board of Trade, with its motherly care for our lives, would express strong disapproval. The log line was whisked merrily over the stern of the Will-o’-the-Wisp, with the satisfactory result that she logged 17½ knots. The Jews were delighted, so was I; and the bargain was clinched.”
As to the legal status of a blockade-runner, Taylor says: “The blockading force is entitled to treat such a ship in all respects as an enemy, and to use any means recognized in civilized warfare to drive off, capture or destroy her. A crew so captured may be treated as prisoners of war, nor is any resistance to capture permitted, and a single blow or shot in his own defence turns the blockade-runner into a pirate.” In the same line is what Wilson’s “Iron Clads in Action” says regarding the fact that the crews of captured blockade-runners “at least once or twice rose up on the prize crew and recaptured the ship. It was a big risk—piracy upon the high seas—with the penalty of death if blood was shed.”
One of the cases wherein the crew recaptured the ship from the prize crew is described very well in the Mercantile Marine Magazine (London) for June, 1862, p. 177. The story begins: “On Saturday, May 3, the rooms of the Liverpool Mercantile Marine Association were crowded almost to suffocation by the merchants and Mercantile Marine officers of Liverpool, to witness the presentation of a magnificent testimonial to Captain William Wilson, of the British ship Emily St. Pierre, for his pluck and gallantry in recapturing his ship which had been seized by the United States cruiser James Adger, off Charleston.” He had been guilty of “piracy upon the high seas,” but 170 Liverpool merchants united to give him a silver tea and coffee service, the association named gave him a gold medal, the owners of the ship gave him 2,000 guineas, and his crew gave him a sextant. The captain, in his little speech, said that the “token of your kindness” would remind the British sailor that “his efforts for the right and true will not be lost sight of nor go unrewarded.” The story is well worth quoting as showing how men, naturally inclined to “the right and true,” may be led by the exigencies of trade to applaud and reward even “piracy upon the high seas.”
The reader should observe here that for a captured crew of one belligerent to rise against a prize crew of the other belligerent is a very different matter from this act of “piracy.”