Running the Blockade / A Personal Narrative of Adventures, Risks, and Escapes During the American Civil War

by Thomas E. Taylor

For even here danger began. At this time a great deal of bad blood was caused by the way in which the Northerners in their efforts to enforce a blockade were extending the doctrine of the operations permissible to belligerents. But there is no doubt now that they were perfectly right. True, the proposition that a belligerent might seize a neutral ship for attempted breach of blockade thousands of miles away from the blockaded coast was one that would have been condemned by the old school of International lawyers as nothing less than monstrous, and by none more energetically than the great publicists who have so richly adorned the American bench.

So far were such doctrines from being recognised, that it was generally held that a vessel making a long ocean voyage might even call at a blockaded port to inquire if the blockade was still existent, and, no matter how suspicious her intentions, she was entitled to a warning before being captured. But it must be remembered that those were the days of sailing ships, which might have been without any news of passing events for months. No blockade of any importance had yet been subjected to the new conditions of steam navigation, and it was unreasonable to expect that the blockaders would hold themselves bound by rules which never contemplated the existing state of things. If the Americans were stretching the theory of blockade, it was only because we were extending its practice. It was not to be argued that, if we were building a whole fleet of steamers for the express purpose of defying their cruisers, they were not justified in trying to intercept them at any point they chose. From the very outset the voyages of these vessels showed them to be guilty, and the most barefaced advocate could hardly have maintained without shame that they were protected by their ostensibly neutral destination, when that destination was a notorious nest of offence like Nassau.

Still the new methods were none the less galling to the susceptibilities of British merchants, who of all men claimed to go and come on the high seas as they pleased, and every day those engaged in the service became more pronounced in their Southern sympathies, and louder in their denunciations of the Northerner's high-handed ways.

In order to economise coal the Banshee was taking the usual course adopted by sailing vessels. This was the ordinary practice of runners, and as the Federals grew bolder, stronger, and more exasperated, they stretched their patrolling cruisers further and further across the Atlantic, till, a few weeks after the Banshee left Madeira, a Federal ship of war was actually lying in wait for one of the new runners at the mouth of Funchal Bay! The moment the British vessel put to sea the American opened fire upon her as mercilessly as though she were coming out of Charleston or Wilmington instead of out of a neutral port, and nothing but superior speed and clever handling saved her from destruction within sight and sound of neutral territory.

The Banshee having been earlier in the field was more fortunate, but the voyage was none the less exciting as she neared the Bahamas. The neighbouring seas were alive with cruisers who, regarding everything bound for Nassau as primâ facie guilty of an intention to break the blockade, seized any vessel they had a mind to on the chance of getting her condemned in the United States Courts. Indeed, the principal centres of blockade-running were almost as closely invested as the ports of the Confederate States, and only a few months before the notorious Captain Wilkes (now promoted to the rank of Admiral for his popular but unwarrantable conduct in the Trent affair) had been further distinguishing himself by literally blockading Bermuda with the squadron under his command.

Although from first to last the British Government showed nothing but sympathy with the Northern States in the difficult task of their blockade, and although they never once complained of a decision of the American Courts, or in any way countenanced the runners, this was going a little too far. A protest was unavoidable, and considering the antecedents of Admiral Wilkes the Federal Government could hardly complain if two British war-ships were ordered to watch the over-zealous officer. It would appear that at the White House the representations from St. James's were regarded as reasonable, for after this the American cruisers kept a more deferential distance; the Banshee at any rate was able to run into Nassau without being overhauled, and her arrival there caused a great sensation, as being the first boat specially built for the service.

Having received the congratulations of my many friends at Nassau upon possessing so fine a tool to work with, I at once set about getting her ready for a trip as soon as the nights set in dark enough. For so vigilant had the blockading force become by this time, that a successful run was considered practically impossible except on moonless nights. Invisibility, care, and determination were the secrets of success, and to this end the Banshee was carefully prepared. Everything aloft was taken down, till nothing was left standing but the two lower masts with small cross-trees for a look-out man on the fore, and the boats were lowered to the level of the rails. The whole ship was then painted a sort of dull white, the precise shade of which was so nicely ascertained by experience before the end of the war that a properly dressed runner on a dark night was absolutely indiscernible at a cable's length. So particular were captains on this point that some of them even insisted on their crews wearing white at night, holding that one black figure on the bridge or on deck was enough to betray an otherwise invisible vessel.

Perfect as the Banshee looked, when her toilet was complete, I was even more fortunate in my crew.

For captain I had Steele, one of the most daring and successful commanders the time brought out. Absolutely devoid of fear, never flurried, decided and ready in emergency, and careful as a mother, he was the beau-ideal of a blockade-runner. Already he had served his apprenticeship to the trade and knew what failure meant, for while in command of the Tubal Cain he had been captured on his very first trip, and, after tasting for a short time the hospitality of an American prison, had been released—richer by the experience, but in no wise daunted.

The chief engineer, Erskine, too, had seen service, having worked as second engineer on board the Confederate cruiser Oreto, when the famous Captain Maffitt ran her into Savannah. As the engines of a blockade-runner are her arm, her success must necessarily in great measure depend on the qualities of her engineer, and it would have been hard to find a better man for the task than Erskine. Cool in danger, full of resource in sudden difficulty, and as steady as the tide, he was yet capable of fearlessly risking everything and straining to the last pound, when the word came, in one of those rousing forms of expression with which old Steele was wont to notify down the engine-room tube, that the critical moment had come.