page_title: Blockade runners of the American Civil War
section_title: Blockade runners
hierarchical_section_title: Blockade runners of the American Civil War / Blockade runners
caption_attribution_description: English: Short Title: H.H. Lloyd &amp; Co's Campaign Military Charts Showing The Principal Strategic Places Of Interest (map of Mobile Bay). Date: 1861. Author: Lloyd, H.H.&#160;; Viele, Egbert L&#160;; Haskins, Charles. Publisher: New York: H.H. Lloyd &amp; Co. Format: File is in JPEG format, 10x-20x times faster than PNG-format files, due to auto-resizing as a smaller file (10-Feb-07). Full Title: H.H. Lloyd &amp; Co's Campaign Military Charts Showing The Principal Strategic Places Of Interest. Engraved Expressly To Meet A Public Want During The Present War. Compiled From Official Data By Egbert L. Viele, Military and Civil Engineer; and Charles Haskins. Published Under The Auspices Of The American Geographical And Statistical Society. Entered ... 1861 by H.H. Lloyd &amp; Co. H.H. Lloyd &amp; Co's Military Charts. Sixteen Maps On One Sheet. Source: http://www.davidrumsey.com Variations: PNG-format file (same width 420x600, 10x larger file): :Image:Battle of Mobile Bay map.png (587 KB). Map labels (clockwise from top): Northern bay: Mobile River, Tensaw River, Appalacha River, D'Olive's Bay, Batteau Bay, Tensaw R., Levons B., Polecat Bay, Blakely I., Mobile R.; Eastern shore: Stockton, D'Olive's Bay, Howards Newport, Fish River, Red Bluffs, Alabama City, Williamsburg, GrPoint Clear, Mullet Point, Weeks' Bay, Fish R., Bon Secours R(iver); Bottom bay: Oyster Bay, Bon Secours Bay, Litle Pt Clear, St Andrews Bay, LT H, Ft. Morgan, Mobile Pt, Sand I(sland) / L.H., FT. Gaines, Pelican Bay, Dauphine I. Bay, Gravelines, Dauphine Island, Petit Bois I(sland), MISSISSIPPI SOUND; Western shore: Grand Bay, Terrapin., Grand Pt., Heron Bay, LT H, Cedar Pt, Alabama Port., Fowl R(iver), Fowl R Pt, Deer R(iver) Pt, Dog R(iver), New Orleans R.R. (railroad), Stewarts Pav, LT H, MOBILE, Mobile and Ohio R.R. (railroad), Gt Northern Rail Road, Toulminville, Whistler, Kushla, Belle Air.
context_page_description: The blockade runners of the American Civil War were seagoing steam ships that were used to get through the Union blockade that extended some 3,500 miles along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines and the lower Mississippi River. The Confederate states were largely without industrial capability and could not provide the quantity of arms and other supplies needed to fight against the industrial north. Blockade runners built in Scotland and England met this need and imported the guns, ordnance and other supplies that the Confederacy desperately needed, in exchange for cotton that the British textile industry likewise was in desperate need of. To get through the blockade, these ships, built in British ship yards and specially designed for speed, had to cruise undetected, usually at night, through the Union blockade. The typical blockade runners were privately owned vessels often operating with a letter of marque issued by the Confederate States of America. If spotted, the blockade runners would attempt to outmaneuver or simply outrun any Union ships on blockade patrol, very often successfully.
context_section_description: The ships employed in blockade-running were almost all privately owned, many of them built by the British or French who sought to maintain trade with the southern states. The Confederate government only had about eleven ships of its own that were employed in the blockade-running effort. Among the most famous blockade runners was the CSS Robert E. Lee a Scottish built iron-hulled, steamer which was eventually captured by Union forces in 1863  and the privately owned SS Syren which made a record 33 successful runs through the Union blockade. 
  The blockade runners had a specific function in the handling of cargoes headed for the Confederacy. Purchases of supplies made in England were first shipped to Nassau in the bottoms of British vessels where the cargoes would be transferred to blockade runners, ships of lighter draft and greater speed. From Nassau they would make their way to ports in Wilmington, Charleston and Savannah. Lewis Heylinger of New Orleans was the agent and representative in Nassau for the Confederacy throughout the war. His job was to coordinate the transferring of cargoes arriving from England to the blockade runners and then arrange for shipping to the Confederacy. 
  The first outbound blockade runner to elude the blockade made its way to Nassau, landing there on December 5, 1861. Blockade runners would typically export cotton to Nassau where it would be stored, then transferred to a neutral ship and sent to England, usually Liverpool. By the end of the war, 397 ships sailed from the Confederacy to Nassau, and 588 went from Nassau to the Confederacy.
  Because of the great bulk and weight involved with shipping cannons, arms and gunpowder, owners of the small blockading vessels instead preferred to ship luxury and other smaller items of less weight into Confederate ports. This began to compromise the purpose of the blockade runners original mission, i.e.supplying the Confederate Army. Subsequently, the Confederacy enacted regulations in February, 1864, limiting the importation of luxury items, which however, were often evaded.
  Oftentimes vessels departing from various ports in Bermuda ran to Wilmington and Charleston from where most of the supplies were then shipped by rail to Augusta, the main depot for the Western armies, or to Richmond, the main eastern depot. Imports shipped to Galveston were also sent by rail to Houston. By 1863 Union attacks along the Confederate coast made running the blockade more difficult, forcing blockade runners to use other ports besides those at Wilmington, Charleston and Savannah.  After the capture of New Orleans in 1862 the ports in Mobile and Galveston were the next choice, used in conjunction with Havana as a transfer point.
  Unlike Charleston and Savannah, Wilmington was the central depot for blockade runners throughout most of the Civil War. Between October, 1864, and January, 1865, 8,632,000
  pounds of meat, 1,507,000 pounds of lead, 1,933,000 pounds of saltpeter, 546,000 pairs of shoes, 316,000 pairs of blankets, half a million pounds of coffee, 69,000 rifles, and 43 cannon reached the Confederates through the port of Wilmington alone, "while cotton sufficient to pay for these purchases was exported. When Wilmington fell in February, 1865, the fate of the Confederacy was sealed.
  The Union made several attempts to stop the ships coming and going; but it proved to be a futile effort, as the blockade runners were built for speed. This was made plainly evident on December 23, 1864, when the largest Union fleet ever to assemble in the Atlantic attacked Fort Fisher, a massive fortification protecting the Cape Fear River entrance and Wilmington. While the fleet of 125 Men-of-war and transports were blockading the harbor, an incoming blockade runner passed through the fleet and took refuge upriver. The last blockade runner to make its way into Wilmington's port was the SS Wild Rover, on January 5, 1865. The fort was attacked a second time on January 13, and after a two-day siege it was captured on January 15 by the Union Army and Navy. Several blockade runners previously docked
caption: Mobile Bay
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