So…what happened if a blockade runner was captured? What happened to the ship? The crew? And what would a captain do to prevent capture?
Today, we’ll continue our discussion of blockade runners bringing supplies to the Confederacy during the Civil War, focusing on a relatively common circumstance, but one that every Southern captain wanted to avoid. A captured ship meant loss of supplies entering the Southern states and loss of profit for the owners, captain, and crew. Continue reading
It’s the post that some of my readers have been waiting for…
Let’s talk about Blockade Runners’ role in the Confederate economy and their economic impact. These unarmed merchant vessels – owned privately or by the state or Confederate governments – carried cargoes worth thousands of dollars in and out of the blockaded Southern states. Today, we’ll do a “twenty-thousand” foot overview of King Cotton, the gross value of the cargoes, who was paying for the cargoes, and what happened (economically) when they were captured. Continue reading
What did blockade runners bring to the Confederate states? Or maybe a better question: what didn’t they bring? In previous posts, I’ve briefly mentioned some of the cargoes, but I thought it might be worthwhile to devote a whole post to the subject and dispel a myth or two created by a famous (or infamous) movie about the Civil War. Continue reading
Gazette665 