running the blockade 3

running the blockade 3

The total fleet of the United States when the war broke out consisted of

less than 150 vessels, of which fully one-third were quite

unserviceable. About forty had crews; the rest were out of commission,

and of these ten or eleven of the best were lying at the Norfolk Navy

Yard and fell into the hands of the Confederates. From these figures it

will be seen, therefore, how impossible it was at first to maintain the

blockade which the Northerners had declared, and how ineffectual it must

be, seeing the length of coast-line to be watched.

 

With their usual energy, however, the Northerners set to work to

increase their fleet; within very few weeks over 150 vessels had been

purchased and equipped for sea, and more than fifty ironclads and

gunboats laid down and rapidly pushed forward towards completion. In

addition to these a large number of river craft were requisitioned and

protected by bullet-proof iron for service on the rivers; but even with

these vigorous measures the blockade was anything but effective during

the first eighteen months or two years of the war. But the Northerners

steadily and by almost superhuman efforts increased their fleet, and at

the beginning of 1865 had so far succeeded that they possessed a fleet

of nearly 700 vessels, of which some 150 were employed upon the blockade

of Wilmington and Charleston alone, and patrolling their adjacent

waters.

 

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.

 

Such was the state of things when, one day early in the year 1862, one

of the partners in the house where I was serving called me into his

room. After telling me how he and a few friends had purchased a steamer

to have a try at the blockade, he asked me if I would care to go as

supercargo?

 

The answer was not doubtful. It was a stroke of luck far better than I

had any right to expect at my age (for I was but twenty-one), and

needless to say I embraced my fortune with alacrity.

 

"By all means," said I, "if I am not too young."

 

My chief was good enough to say that he thought I was _not_ too young,

and so I was fairly launched in my career as a blockade-runner.