Blockade Runner Cargo

[5fish]

I've read numerous accounts of blockade runners carrying large Armstrong or Whitworth cannon and rifles to the Confederacy. I've also read a few accounts of blockade runners carrying steam engines.

With the debate in some of the other threads on the limited ability of the confederacy to make armor for ironclads, and ripping up railroad track for such, has anyone come across a history or discussion of blockade runners carrying armor plates, pig iron, or even iron ore to the Confederacy? Seems like these could have been placed in the bottom of a ship's hold as ballast...

Check out this Thread Link it might interest you in answering a part of your question...
http://civilwartalk.com/forums/civil...rials-war.html

[DaveBrt]

Blockaderunners did not carry pig iron because other material was more important. Lead, tin, saltpetre, weapons, blankets -- all were needed much more than a few extra pigs of iron. The amount of iron needed was so great that the blockaderunners could never have satisfied a meaningful part of it; however, they could keep up with the need for the other items rather well.

The idea that iron items were not shipped because they were too heavy is wrong. The ship can carry a certain weight and volume. As long as you do not run out of one, you can carry all of the other that your ship will hold -- carrying iron would have left empty volume; carrying bags of saltpetre would have left empty weight. But regardless, the ship could carry iron, up to the limit of what the ship could carry. ----- Now commerical blockaderunners may not have wanted to carry iron because the profit was too low, but that is a different issue.