Blockade Runner Cargo

[Grendel1367]

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...

[Borderruffian]

My understanding is that the Blockade runners were mostly opportunists and profiteers, they carried mainly goods that demanded a high price on the civilian markets with an half hearted nodd to military goods.

Even if they had carried ore or pig iron the ability in the CS to smelt and process was limited.

[Nathanb1]

My understanding (which is admittedly limited) is that they needed to maintain a shallow draft, which would necessarily limit weight to the bare minimum needed to be stable in the water -- even as ballast, the amount of iron brought in that way would have been insignificant compared to the needs of the Confederacy, not to mention the smelting/foundry problems.

[5fish]

Here is a link to the manifest of Blockade runners into North Carolina. You will see that it was mostly consumers goods.

http://books.google.com/books?id=La4...age&q=&f=false

[RoadDog]

Carrying iron plates and pig iron would have been too heavy.

Of interest, the 150-pdr Armstrong gun at Fort Fisher was one of two delivered to Wilmington via b-r.

The other was placed at Fort Caswell and ended up at the Naval Academy until it was melted down during one of the world wars. The Fisher one is still at West Point.

[Grendel1367]

Here is a link to the manifest of Blockade runners into North Carolina. You will see that it was mostly consumers goods.

http://books.google.com/books?id=La4...age&q=&f=false

There were a handful of blockade runners owned and operated by the government. Were they also carrying consumer goods?

[Susquehanna River Rat]

I´m pretty sure I read somewhere that the Blockading Squadrons stopped ships carrying pig iron as ballast and that they were seized and sent North with a prize crew at least for further evaluation in a prize court. I think this was early in the war and once it was known that pig iron as ballast wasn´t going to be let through, they stopped, or at least limited the attempts to smuggle it.
I look and see where I read about that and get back to you.

Bill

[5fish]

There were a handful of blockade runners owned and operated by the government. Were they also carrying consumer goods?

Here is the manifest of the Blockade runner Carolina/Caroline,,,


There is an additional contemporary reference to Caroline being present at Nassau on November 12, having been “chased back.” This would seem to suggest that she had been pursued on the return leg of her first round voyage.

A partial cargo manifest exists for Caroline’s second trip through the blockade. During the latter part of the war, private runners like Caroline were required to give over to the Confederate government a proportion of their cargo space on trips into Southern ports. In many cases, it is the record of these government-owned shipments that has survived, while the manifests of private cargoes have become lost and scattered along with the records of the businesses themselves.

In December 1864, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas L. Bayne, at Wilmington, prepared a listed of government cargoes received at that port between October 25 and December 6, 1864. After her arrival on December 2, Bayne reported, Caroline discharged a large quantity of government stores, mostly raw materials, and mostly consigned to the C.S. Navy:

2 cases of merchandise, consigned to the Navy
5 bundles of sheet iron, consigned to the Navy
18 casks of L [leaf?] copper, consigned to the Navy
4 bundles of copper bolts, consigned to the Navy
8 casks of L tin, consigned to the Navy
7 casks of pig lead, consigned to the Navy
8 casks of saltpeter, consigned to the Navy
7 cases of zinc, consigned to the Navy
6 casks of metal, consigned to the Navy
10 rolls of lead, consigned to the Navy
10 bales of blankets, consigned to the Navy
100 bundles of iron ties, consigned to John Seixas [C.S. War Department agent at Wilmington]

I highlighted a section because it states that private Blockade runners were to give a portion of their cargo space up for Confederate government business. The manifest above list items you were looking for and it is late in the war.

If you think about it, it was not that much raw goods it brought in. Could not build an ironclad form it.


Here is a link to the site and more stories and pictures about Blockade runners trying to run the blockade of Texas ports...

http://maritimetexas.net/wordpress/?tag=blockade-runner

[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.