View attachment 133227
Postwar image of USS Canandaigua. navsource.org.
When I was working on the blockade running book, I put together an Excel spreadsheet to calculate prize money payout to individual members of the ship's crew. The amount an individual officer (excluding the Captain) or sailor would receive depended on the number in the crew carried on the ship's books at the time of capture, information that I did not have ready access to. However, it's a fair approximation of the amounts of prize money involved in individual capture.
U.S. Navy warships on blockade station were rarely at full, authorized complement, and typically had on board 10% to 25% smaller crews than officially listed. This meant that the actual amount of prize money awarded to each man was probably
higher than the attached calculations suggest.
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Marines drilling at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At left, just beyond the Navy Yard wall, the side of a building is painted, "PRIZE MONEY." This was likely the premises of a prize money broker, who would advance sailors and Marines immediate cash in exchange for them signing over later (and larger) official prize money payouts to them. Brooklyn Navy Yard Collection.
Against that, prize money was often very slow in reaching the individual men to which it was awarded. Prize cases could be tied up in legal wrangling for years, and it typically took at least several months, and sometimes years, for payments to be made. Francis Davenport, a former officer on USS
Portsmouth, writing long after the war about the first prize his ship had captured, noted laconically, "I think I got some $43 prize money about twelve years afterward…" In some ports, brokers sprang up that would advance sailors cash in exchange for them signing over their prize money to them, typically at a usurious rate.
View attachment 133224
Charles Mount, an Irish immigrant who enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1864 and served on Canandaigua. Because he was not on board when Canandaigua captured Cherokee, Mount did not share in the Cherokee prize money. His messmates, though, would have come in for about $160 each. Navsource.org
Since prize money was distributed using a standard formula, there are only three variables that need to be put into the spreadsheet — the total complement of the capturing ship (taken from Silverstone's
Warships of the Civil War Navies), and the adjudicated value of the prize, less court costs and expenses, both figures taken from Porter's
Naval History of the Civil War. Identification of the ships sharing in the prize money is taken from Porter, and cross-checked in Headley's
Our Navy in the Great Rebellion.
In the case of Rear Admiral Turner, described above, the three prizes in question were captured by just two Union blockaders --
Cherokee by USS
Canandaigua, and
Aries and
St. Johns by USS
Stettin. All three prizes were adjudicated in Boston. The date given in the record for the capture of
St. Johns appears to be incorrect; other sources list that date as April 18, 1863, which puts it in about the same time frame as the other two.
Of the net proceeds, the government took 50% right off the top, which went (IIRC) into a fund for hospitals for disabled seamen. The remainder was divided as follows:
- 5% to the Squadron Commander (e.g., Farragut, DuPont, S. P. Lee, Dahlgren)
- 1% to the local Division Commander
- 44% to the officers and crews of the ship(s) making the capture
That 44% was then divided in the 20 shares, allotted as follows:
- Captain, 3/20
- Officers and Midshipmen, 10/20
- Enlisted Men, 7/20
View attachment 133226
Paymaster Charles H. Eldridge served aboard Canandaigua from 1862 to 1864. His share of the Cherokee proze money would likely have been around $677. Navsource.org.
Aries and
Cherokee were particularly valuable captures, the vessels and their contents brings around $150K each at auction, before expenses. The three PDFs attached show approximately how much the captains, officers, and enlisted crew members should have received from each of these three captures. Notably,
Aries was a huge haul, an valuable ship and cargo divided among the small crew of
Stettin. Each officer of that screw steamer would've received over $1,700, and each enlisted man roughly $420, far more than a year's pay for an Ordinary Seaman.
Bringing the