BLOCKADE RUNNER FULL

BLOCKADE RUNNER FULL

These blockade runners shipped with their holds full of cotton to sell, creating a lifeline for the Confederate military and an importation venture to bring luxury goods to the wealthy. įor the opening months of the war, the Confederates laughed at the blockade, but by 1862, their supply chain and international communications depended on swift, secretive steamers sneaking in and out of ports or inlets.

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles oversaw the purchase, conversion, building, or commissioning of hundreds of ships during the Civil War years and by the end of 1864, 470 ships patrolled the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines and major harbors. Navy had only a handful of seaworthy vessels and nearly 3,000 miles of coastline to patrol to create an effective blockade. While the plan looked grand on paper, the U.S. The “Anaconda Plan,” as it was dubbed, called for the “strangulation” of the Confederacy through a Federal naval blockade and capture of the major rivers to divide the South and limit its resources. Coming just five days after Fort Sumter’s surrender, the blockade formed part of the comprehensive plan which General Winfield Scott had proposed. On April 19, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln declared a blockade of the rebellious Southern states. The Union’s blockade and the Confederacy’s blockade runners drew an international trade aspect into the war and frequently raised diplomatic questions. This account by James Sprunt captures the daring dramas that were enacted along the Southern coastline near ports or safe inlets as blockade runners tried to keep the exports and imports of the Confederacy afloat in the face of increasingly vigilant Federal blockading squadrons. A furious bombardment by the Shenandoah, aggravated by the display of the Lilian’s Confederate flag, was continued until nightfall, when, by a clever ruse, the Lilian, guided by the flash of her pursuer’s guns, stopped for a few minutes then, putting her helm hard over, ran across the wake of the war-ship straight out to sea, and, on the following morning, passed the fleet off Fort Fisher in such a crippled condition that several weeks were spent in Wilmington for repairs.” A heavy sea was running which deflected the aim of the man-of-war, and which alone saved the Lilian from destruction. m., her gunners and commanding officers of the batteries being distinctly visible to the Lilian‘s crew. The Shenandoah began firing her broadside guns at three o’clock, p. This was probably the narrowest escape ever made by a blockade runner in a chase. Steamer Shenandoah, which sailed a parallel course within half a mile of her and forced the Lilian at times into the breakers. “The Confederate Steamer Lilian, of which I was then Purser, was chased for nearly a hundred miles from Cape Lookout by the U.

Blockade runner