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

by Thomas E. Taylor

It can easily be imagined, therefore, that attempting to get in and out of those ports in the latter months of 1864 and the early ones of 1865 was a very different business from the condition of affairs which existed earlier in the war. When the above ports fell into the hands of the Northerners, the blockade, considering the nature of the coast-line and types of vessels employed as blockaders and runners, was to all intents and purposes as effective as could be expected; for the blockading fleet consisted of almost every description of craft, from the old-fashioned 60-gun frigate to the modern "Ironsides" and "Monitors," supplemented by dozens of merchant-steamers converted into gunboats—not very formidable, perhaps, as war-ships, but still dangerous to blockade-runners, especially when fast.

The Southerners, on the other hand, were practically without any navy, with the exception of a few old wooden vessels which they seized at Norfolk Navy Yard at the outbreak of the war; and, as they were almost entirely devoid of engineering works, material, or skilled labour, they could do but little to compete with the North upon the ocean. Their naval efforts were chiefly in the direction of supplying themselves from outside sources with commerce destroyers, such as the Alabama, Florida, Shenandoah, Georgia, etc., though from the wretched and scanty material which they possessed they succeeded in building two or three formidable ironclads; but their engines and armament were defective, and their crews unskilled. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, the Merrimac, one of the old wooden steamers which they had seized at Norfolk, and which they had converted into an ironclad by covering the hull with railway iron, fought a gallant fight in Hampton Roads with the celebrated Monitor, after having destroyed on the previous day the Congress and Cumberland, two large Northern war-ships.

Another ironclad was also improvised by the Southerners at Mobile. She was called the Tennessee, and was altogether a more formidable craft than the Merrimac, both as regards armament and size, but like the Merrimac was terribly defective in engine power. When Farragut attacked Mobile she did considerable damage to his fleet, and for a time engaged it single-handed, but at last was forced to haul down her flag.

The Confederates also built another small ironclad at Wilmington on the same lines as the Merrimac and Tennessee, but unfortunately she ran ashore on her passage down the river, in order to attack the blockaders outside, and became a total wreck. In addition to the ships I have mentioned they possessed the Sumpter, Rappahanock, Tallahasse (steamers), and several sailing vessels; but with these vessels they had no chance against their powerful rivals in actual warfare, although the Alabama and her consorts swept the mercantile navy of the United States from the ocean.

Seeing how inadequate the Federal navy was at the time when the blockade was declared, there was certainly a strong case for treating President Lincoln's prohibition as a mere "paper" blockade. This, however, the British Government did not choose to do. At this time we were particularly anxious, in view of the coming International Exhibition, to stand well with all men and to be entangled in no foreign complications. Within a fortnight, therefore, of the receipt of the news, there came out a Royal Proclamation enjoining on all loyal subjects of the British Crown an attitude of strict neutrality, and solemnly admonishing them under pain of Her Majesty's displeasure to respect the Federal blockade.

Needless to say, the proclamation awakened no respect whatever for the blockade. The lecture in the latter part of it was received in the spirit in which it was issued—as a piece of mere international courtesy; and those of Her Majesty's loyal subjects who were most affected by the new situation at once took steps to make the best of it. With due respect to the pain of Her Majesty's displeasure we all knew that to run a foreign blockade could never be an offence against the laws of the realm, nor were we to be persuaded that any number of successful or unsuccessful attempts to enter the proclaimed ports could ever constitute a breach of neutrality. Firm after firm, with an entirely clear conscience, set about endeavouring to recoup itself for the loss of legitimate trade by the high profits to be made out of successful evasions of the Federal cruisers; and in Liverpool was awakened a spirit the like of which had not been known since the palmy days of the slave trade.

It was a spirit of adventurous commerce savouring of the good old days of the French wars, when a lad might any day be called from the office to take his place on the deck of a privateer, and when daring spirits were always ready to steal away from a convoy and run the risk of capture on the chance of getting the cream of the market. The risks a blockade-runner had to face were much the same, for as no Government pretends to interfere with its citizens if they choose at their peril to trade in the face of a blockade, so no protection or redress is given them if they are caught red-handed. After official notification of blockade any neutral vessel attempting to leave or enter a blockaded port forfeits its neutrality and places itself in the position of a hostile belligerent. The blockading force is entitled to treat such a ship in all respects as an enemy, and to use any means recognised in civilised warfare to drive off, capture, or destroy her. A crew so captured may be treated as prisoners of war, and their vessel carried into the captor's port, where after condemnation by an Admiralty court she becomes his prize. Nor is any resistance to capture permitted, and a single blow or shot in his own defence turns the blockade-runner into a pirate.

Such was the exciting prospect our seamen and supercargoes had before them as they sailed for the Southern ports. At first, of course, the risk was not thought very great; the Confederate ports were so many and far between, and the Federal navy so weak and unorganised, that vessels proceeded very much as if there was no blockade at all. The consequence was that as early as June 1861, barely two months after the declaration of the blockade, several English vessels had been seized and condemned. Almost every week after that brought news of fresh captures; on the other hand, so many ships succeeded in getting through the widely scattered cruisers, that the business still went on in the old clumsy way. We had neither of us learnt our trade then; the Federal captains, in hopes of fat prizes, cruised without order and chased wide, leaving ports open for new-comers, while our best idea of minimising risks was to send out old unseaworthy slugs which we could well afford to lose.

During the whole of the first year of the war it was in this amateurish way that things went on. A pretty regular tale of captures came in, and among the reports the mails brought home began to be whispered stories of daring attempts, and hair-breadth escapes, that set many a youngster kicking very impatiently under his desk. There came stories, too, of exasperated or ill-conditioned Federal captains who had behaved with unwarrantable bluster or tyranny to captured crews, and these began to awaken in mercantile circles a partisan leaning towards the South, which certainly did not exist at the beginning of the war. Some of us, it must be confessed, were growing oblivious of our duty as loyal subjects and of the solemn admonitions of the proclamation of neutrality, and for not a few the profit of making a successful run began to be seasoned with the pleasure of doing a good turn to the South. It is all bygone now; runners can laugh over the rough knocks they sometimes got, and blockaders at the weary dance they were led. But in those days the ill feeling was very strong, and in the midst of all the fermenting irritation dropped the grating surprise of the Trent affair.

Captain Wilkes, a Federal naval officer commanding the West India station and engaged in blockade duties, took upon himself, with more zeal than law, to board the Trent, a British mail steamer, on the high seas, and seize from its deck two Confederate diplomatic agents who were passengers from Havana, accredited respectively to the French and the British Governments. There is no doubt that the English nation was prepared to make any sacrifice to resent this outrage, and feeling ran very deep while we waited for the answer to our demands for redress. It cannot be denied that people on the other side made themselves a little ridiculous and irritating over our perfectly reasonable request for the surrender of the prisoners. Captain Wilkes was the hero of the hour, and blustering exultation over England the tune of the street. But in the White House heads were cooler, and in due course full reparation was made. Still the "spoiled child of diplomacy" was not made to apologise—she barely expressed regret, and her omission of this international courtesy, combined with the extravagances of her press, confirmed in many Englishmen their inchoate partisanship for the South.