running the blockade 2

running the blockade 2

For the non-professional reader one of the chief points of technical

interest in Mr. Taylor's book will be the light it throws on a great

national question, which periodically comes out in moments of alarm. It

is now a common subject for paragraphists to dilate upon how, if England

lost command of the sea, her food supply would be cut off in a week (or

some other minute period) and herself be brought to the mercy of her

enemy. However useful such prognostications may be for stimulating an

interest in the navy, they are full of fallacies and even dangerous as

leading to demands for naval armaments so extravagant as to cause the

taxpayer to turn his back on the navy altogether, and button his pockets

in sheer disgust. To begin with, if England lost the command of the sea,

it does not follow that any one else would obtain it, a fact too often

lost sight of in naval discussion. The thing does not hang in a simple

dilemma. You cannot say, either England has the command or her enemy has

it. There is still the middle hypothesis, that neither has it. And this

in all reasonable probability is the worst that could suddenly befall

us. The destruction of England's command of the sea is no child's play,

and even if three Powers together succeeded in doing it, it could only

be at such a sacrifice to themselves as would leave the seas practically

free to the operations of neutrals. Mr. Taylor's experiences show

clearly how surprisingly easy it was for bold and expert captains with

adequate vessels to run the most strict and effective blockades. Were

England to become engaged in a great war, the first step would be for

numbers of her mercantile marine to pass to neutral flags, and all these

vessels with their crews would be ready-made blockade-runners the moment

there was a call for them. And even assuming that by some extraordinary

chance the British fleet for a time was suppressed with little or no

damage to the enemy, the precedents of the American war go to show that

the navies of three Powers absolutely intact could hardly avail to

maintain a blockade of such a coast-line as ours.

 

The conditions of blockade, it is true, have changed, but the balance

remains much the same. Mr. Taylor considers that search-lights, for

instance, tell quite as much for one side as the other. Increased speed

is at least as favourable for running as it is for blockading. Torpedo

boats seem hardly to affect the balance at all. For while they render

the position of a blockading squadron less secure than formerly, they on

the other hand furnish it with ideal patrols. Quick-firing guns are all

in favour of the blockader, but on the other hand, long-range guns of

position are all against him, compelling him to keep further to sea and

so to cover more ground. The extreme importance of invisibility too, on

which Mr. Taylor insists, shows how great an advantage a runner, able to

procure good smokeless coal, would have over a force blockading the

English coast which could not obtain it. On the whole we may safely

conclude that a commercial blockade is certainly no easier than it was

in the sixties. Many indications from the following pages show how

difficult it is to maintain the blockade even of half a dozen ports, if

you are unable to intercept the regular runners at their points of

departure. This a force without undisputed mastery of the sea could

never effect to a sufficient extent. The lesson then that the following

pages most clearly teaches is, that the danger of the British Isles

being blockaded by any conceivable combination of hostile Powers, so as

to reduce her even approximately near starvation, may be dismissed as

outside the region of practical strategy; and in the next place they

show us the vast importance of maintaining in our navy an adequate force

of vessels of a type calculated to render a commercial blockade really

effective. What Mr. Taylor was able to do with one little steamer to

prolong Lee's resistance is a lesson to be remembered beside Dundonald's

operations on the coast of Spain.

 

Such are a few of the considerations which Mr. Taylor's book suggests.

Different men will draw different lessons from the facts it presents,

but its value as the work of a man of unequalled experience in the

working of a great blockade will be admitted by all: and whatever weight

may be attached to the author's conclusions from his practical

experience, the little work will amply justify its existence if it in

any way stimulates interest in the practical side of a subject, which

naval writers seem inclined to leave too much in the hands of

International lawyers.

 

JULIAN CORBETT.

 

_May 1896._

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

 

 

CHAPTER I PAGE

HOW I BEGAN 1

CHAPTER II

MY FIRST ATTEMPT ON THE _DESPATCH_ 16

CHAPTER III

THE _BANSHEE NO. 1_ 33

CHAPTER IV

THE _BANSHEE'S_ FIRST RUN IN 44

CHAPTER V

FORT FISHER AND WILMINGTON 55

CHAPTER VI

THE REST OF THE _BANSHEE NO. 1.'S_ CAREER 70

CHAPTER VII

LIFE AT NASSAU 86

CHAPTER VIII

OUR FLEET 101

CHAPTER IX

BERMUDA 115

CHAPTER X

EXPERIENCES ASHORE IN DIXIE'S LAND 131

CHAPTER XI

HAVANA AND GALVESTON 145

CHAPTER XII

BLOCKADES OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE 166

INDEX 177

 

 

 

 

ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, ETC.

 

 

BURNING OF THE _NIGHT HAWK_ _Frontispiece_ iv

 

CHART OF WILMINGTON HARBOUR AND APPROACHES _Page_ 45

 

PORTRAIT OF COLONEL LAMB _To face page_ 56

 

_BANSHEE_ CHASED BY _JAMES ADGER_ _To face page_ 78

 

_WILL-O'-THE-WISP'S_ DASH FOR WILMINGTON _To face page_ 106

 

_BANSHEE NO. 2_ RUNNING THE GAUNTLET OF THE

GALVESTON BLOCKADING SQUADRON IN DAYLIGHT _To face page_ 156

 

MAP OF THE EAST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA _At

end_

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

HOW I BEGAN

 

Feeling in Liverpool—Declaration of blockade—Its immediate

result—Effect on trade in Liverpool—The theory of

blockades—Attitude of the Federal States—Seaboard of the

Seceding States—The Federal Navy—Energy of the Northern

States—Additions to the Federal Fleet—Position of the

Southerners at sea—Want of building yards and material—Commerce

destroyers—The _Merrimac_ and the _Monitor_—The _Alabama_

and her consorts—Attitude of Great Britain—A royal

proclamation—Preparation for blockade-running—Amateurish

efforts—Daring attempts—The _Trent_ affair—Launched

as a blockade-runner.

 

 

At the outbreak of the great American Civil War I was serving as

assistant to a firm of Liverpool merchants trading chiefly with India

and the United States. There was little in my life at the outset to

foretell the full taste of danger, excitement, and adventure which it

was my fortune so early to enjoy. I had nothing to hope for beyond the

usual life of office routine and a dim chance of a partnership abroad in

the future.

 

Young as I was, my interest in the coming struggle was deeply aroused.

From the position I occupied its significance was brought home to me

with the absorbing interest of a factor in my career. My own fortunes

and those of my nearest friends seemed at their outset to be bound up in

a piece of history that promised to leave its mark upon the world.

Nowhere indeed out of America was the secession of the Southern States

more keenly watched or canvassed than in Liverpool offices and upon the

Exchange of the city, which American trade had begotten and nursed; and

the particular aspect of the impending war was most calculated to fill