Blockade Runners Database?

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Does there exist a wiki or other public database of all know blockade runners?

I'm sure the records are incomplete (being private vessels rather than warships), but it seems like something that could provide a lot of interesting information and data crunching about the nature and effectiveness of the blockade vs blockade running.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Does there exist a wiki or other public database of all know blockade runners?

I'm sure the records are incomplete (being private vessels rather than warships), but it seems like something that could provide a lot of interesting information and data crunching about the nature and effectiveness of the blockade vs blockade running.

AFAIK, not apart from the tables in Stephen R. Wise's Lifeline of the Confederacy, -- although those are limited to steam blockade runners.

 

[John Winn]

My great grandfather was heavily involved in blockade running and in my research I discovered that who owned what simply wasn't always recorded and a lot of things were done on a handshake basis. There were lawsuits after the war having to do with things like who actually owned a certain vessel and they often couldn't really settle things because there were no written records. I've exhausted all the known depositories for records regarding grandpa and it's mainly a wash. I know, though, with certainty that he was a founding member of one the the two largest blockade-running companies, that he did business with the big boys, that he and his brother had two retail stores where they sold their goods and that he used his furniture store building in Charleston to sell "imported" goods at Bee sales. So, he might not have actually owned interests in vessels per se (but there's circumstantial evidence that he did) but he certainly did buy and import shipments of goods so he was a blockade runner in that regard and records regarding his transactions are mostly non-existent. I suspect that's the case for many who were likewise involved.

 

[DaveBrt]

Does there exist a wiki or other public database of all know blockade runners?

I'm sure the records are incomplete (being private vessels rather than warships), but it seems like something that could provide a lot of interesting information and data crunching about the nature and effectiveness of the blockade vs blockade running.

I started to put one together in 2000, but got sidetracked (yuk, yuk) onto my railroad studies. I've never seen anything remotely complete, though Wise is certainly the starting point. If you decide to do it yourself, you will have to plan on spending a lot of time in the import records at the National Archives. You will also have to become intimate with Vandiver's Confederate Blockade Running Through Bermuda. Lastly, you will have to come to terms with the fact that much of what was written about cargoes was not true or was generic. But this is one study that someone needs to do.

 

[RoadDog]

Of course, there were many name changes to confuse those Union eyes watching movement. That would make it difficult to count.

 

[Gary Morgan]

You could try looking for a list of blockade runners that were auctioned off for prize money. It wouldn't give you a comprehens9ive list, but it would probably be a pretty good start...

 

[Phantom]

There are many partial lists and several databases of American Civil War blockade runners. Most newer ones build on older ones. Some cite where they get information, most don't. So the scholarship and hence trustworthiness is doubtful.

The most reliable listing of individual runners at present is Stephen R. Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War. Wise includes dozens of databases about them. It includes dimensions and owners of most steam runners with short histories in Appendix 22. Wise also slogged through compiling data on individual voyages made by each ship. Wise was the first historian to work out the way the business worked as the trade developed - who owned what ships and how the businesses or government bureaus worked. This is a prodigious work of research and scholarship. Read this to understand blockade running as a whole subject, as well as about the steamships.

A newer and larger list is included in Joseph McKenna, British Blockade Runners in the American Civil War. The narrative does a very good job of covering multiple aspects of the trade. It is a nice complement to Wise's book. In my opinion McKenna does not do a careful job of distinguishing between ships built for the trade from the many bought into it mixing them all up together by the builder, but not date. His Chapter 6 is a list of many blockade runners. It is limited (slightly) by only including British runners listed by other compilers. Since so many larger blockade runners were registered in Great Britain that is not too limiting. The list includes multiple (mostly minor) errors about individual ships but unlike Wise, it includes sailing runners.

Older lists include compiled US Government listings of captured "prize" vessels. That list includes more than 1500 individual vessels of all sizes. A version of that total is included in Admiral Porter's The Naval History of the Civil War. Neeser's Statistical and Chronological History of the United States Navy includes many blockade runner captures in his day-by-day record of the war. Prize court records in the National Archives are scattered across multiple regional repositories. The most useful prize court records were published by the Southern District of New York, and in three volumes of the Supreme Court Prize Cases.

A sometimes helpful, sometimes vexing, category of books and articles by economists have tried to assess the success of the blockade, and of blockade running. Most seem to have worked from quite inadequate records leading to doubtful conclusions.

You can't go wrong in carefully mining the bibliography of Steve Wise's Lifeline. Some things to check are the excellent articles by Marcus Price in the American Neptune. Frank Vandiver edited primary business records of several blockade running firms in Bermuda in: Confederate Blockade Running Through Bermuda, 1861-1865.

 

[Ptarmigan]

My database consists of British built steamships and I have also built up a pretty extensiive picture collection but there are still a few ships that I am still searching for images of . I too would recommend Wise as the best source .

 

[USS ALASKA]

A sometimes helpful, sometimes vexing, category of books and articles by economists have tried to assess the success of the blockade, and of blockade running. Most seem to have worked from quite inadequate records leading to doubtful conclusions.

Sir, if I may ask and not meaning to de-rail the thread, which economists do you believe came to doubtful conclusions?

Thanks for your help,
USS ALASKA

 

[John F Messner]

A good source for information on Clydebuilt runners is the Clyde Ships website, https://www.clydeships.co.uk/

British Library Newspaper Archive ($$) is ever expanding and has many titles from Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol as well as several Lloyds of London papers, giving known movements of vessels. I used it extensively for my work on establishing the full history of the Lord Clyde/Ad-Vance during its time as a runner, from the day it left the Clyde until its arrival in Brooklyn after its capture by the Santiago de Cuba.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Does there exist a wiki or other public database of all know blockade runners?

Sir, a very basic, (Vessel Name / Vessel Type / Date Built), 25-page list on the Mariners Museum web site...not much info but a place to start.

https://www.marinersmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/blockadeRunners.pdf

If you have a vessel name, this site might help if a Clyde ship - http://clydeships.co.uk/

HTHs,
USS ALASKA

 

[Ptarmigan]

Here are the names of over 220 British built runners .

A.D. Vance

Abigail

Adela

Albatross

Alexandra

Alice

Alliance

Anglia

Ann (deep hold)

Annie

Antona 1859

Aries 1862

Armstrong

Agnes E Fry

Arran Castle

Atalanta

Badger

Banshee 1

Banshee II

Bat

Beatrice

Bella

Bendigo

Blenheim

Britannia

Caledonia

Calypso

Caroline

Ceres

Chameleon

Charlotte

Chicora (Let Her Be)

City of Petersburg

City of Richmond

Col Lamb

Columbia

Condor

Constance

Coquette

Cornubia

Cronstadt

Cumbria

Curlew

Dare

Dee

Deer

Denbigh

Despatch

Diamond 1853

Dieppe

Dolphin

Don

Douaro 1833

Dream

Druid

Dundalk (Geo McCaw)

Eagle

Echonimist

Edith

Elisabeth (Gen Miramon)

Ella II

Elsie

Emily I

Emily II

Emma Henry

Emma II

Eugenie

Evelyn

Fairy

Falcon

Fannie

Fanny & Jenny* (ex Scotia I)

Fingal

Flamingo

Flora I (Cape Fear)

Flora II

Florence

Florie (Byron)

Fox

Gem

Georgia Belle

Georgiana

Gertrude

Gladiator

Golden Pledge

Granite City

Grapeshot (Agnes Louisa)

Greyhound

GT Watson (Kate II)

Hansa

Hattie

Havelock (Gen Beauregard)

Hebe

Helen Denny

Helen II

Helen III

Herald (Antonica)

Hero

Heroine

Hope

Hornet

Imogene

Index

Iona I

Iona II

Ivanhoe

Jeanette (Eagle)

Julia

Juno I Helen 1

Juno II 1853

Jupiter I

Jupiter II 1849

Kate II (G.T. Watson)

Kelpie

Kenilworth

Labuan

Lady Sterling

Lark

Laurel

Lelia

Leopard (Stonewall)

Let Her run (Avalon)

Lilian

Little Ada 1864 (deep hold)

Little Hattie

Lizzie

Lloyd (Sea Queen)

Lodona

Louisa Anna Fanny

Lucy

Luna (Witch)

Lynx

Mail (Susanna)

Margaret & Jessie

Marmion

Mars

Mary II

Mary Ann (Russia)

Mary Augusta

Mary Bowers

Mary Celestia (Bijou)

Mary Ella

Mary Helen

Mary Virginia (Prince Albert)

Maude Campbell

Mazeppa

Memphis

Merrimac

Minho 1854

Minna (deep hold)

Minnie

Modern Greece

Neptune

Nicolai I

Nighthawk

Nola

Norseman

North Heath

Nuffield

Old Dominion

Ouachita (Sonara)

Owl

Patras

Pearl

Pelican

Penguin

Pet 1862

Peterhoff

Pevensey(Kangaroo)

Phantom

Pheobe

Plover

Presto (Fergus)

Prince Albert 1842

Princess Royal

Ptarmigan

R.E. Lee

Racoon

Ranger 1863

Rattlesnake

Ray

Red Gauntlet

Rose

Rosina

Rothsay Castle 1861

Rouen (FloraIV)

Ruby II

Ruby I

Ruby III

Scotia I*1847 (Fannie & Jennie)

Scotia II 1845

Secret

Siren (Lady of Lyon)

Snipe

Spunkie

Stag I (Kate Gregg)

Stag II

Star

Stettin

Stormy Petrel

Sunbeam

Susan Beirne

Susanna (Mail)

Swan II

Syren

Talisman

Thistle 1 Cherokee

Thistle II

Tristram Shandy

Tubal Cain

Venus

Vesta

Virgin

Virginia

Vixen

Vulture

Wando (Let Her Rip)

Wasp

Wave Queen 1863

Whisper

Widgeon

Wild Daryl

Wild Rover

Will O Wisp

Wren

 

[Don Dixon]

Record Group 365, Treasury Department Collection of Confederate Records, Entry 231, Inward Manifests of the Office of the Collector of Customs at Charleston, South Carolina, at the National Archives contains the manifests of the commercial ships which entered and departed Charleston during the war, as well as some from before the war. The Archives prepared a three page crib sheet listing the names of the ships. Its an interesting body of material.

The shippers and runners went to great pains to disguise what was being shipped and the manifests list myriads of crates, boxes, barrels, etc., with no information about what was in them. What was interesting was the volume of declared luxury goods. One manifest I looked at listed one box of musket caps, 100 cases of wine, 100 cases of distilled spirits, and a number of barrels of distilled spirits. Then there were bolts of silk, corset stays, hoop skirts, bonnets, etc. Meanwhile, military materiel sat on the islands for protracted periods of time for lack of willing transport. One wouldn't have wanted the planter aristocracy to suffer just because they were giving a war.

Regards,
Don Dixon

 

[John F Messner]

As someone who has recently gone through manifests/cargo listings I can attest to the 'generic' listings and the frustration they cause when trying to come up with overall statistics. Cotton going out was usually reported either through newspapers or inbound customs, but cargo running into the the Confederacy was masked or just not reported in detail. Attached is the inwards customs record for the Ad-Vance (on right) and Osprey (left) from Ad-Vance's 26 October 1863 arrival into St George's, Bermuda.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Since it has been mentioned alotta times in alotta threads...

University of Texas at Austin
Confederate blockade running through Bermuda, 1861-1865 : letters and cargo manifests
1949
Vandiver, Frank E., 1925-2005
History
UT Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Description
The letter-books printed below, comprising Part I of this book, were kept by two different men. All but one of the books were those of John Tory Bourne of St. George's, Bermuda. He acted as Confederate Commercial Agent for Bermuda, and his letters throw considerable light on commercial problems of the Confederacy. The remaining letter-book was kept by Major Smith Stansbury, commander of the St. George's Confederate ordnance depot. His letters are, of course, most important for information on shipments of munitions into the Confederate States. Some of the Bourne letters follow typed copies in the St. George's Historical Society. The bulk of them, however, follows the original letter press books, in possession of the Hon. William E. S. Zuill, "Orange Grove," Smith's Parish, Bermuda, who kindly consented to write a Prefatory Note to Part I and who graciously gave permission to publish the Bourne and Stansbury letters. ... Part II of this volume contains cargo manifests of blockade runners which left St. George's, Bermuda, for Southern ports. These manifests were located in St. George's through the kindness of Mr. Hereward Watlington, Mr. Hugh Miller, and Mr. Harry Parker, of Hamilton. The editor hopes that they approximate all the runner's manifests in the Custom House at St. George's. The letters are printed in their original order, and they are published in different "books" exactly as they were found. This arrangement seems better than printing them chronologically, in view of their extent. The editor has taken the liberty of making minor corrections in the documents, where they seemed necessary for the sake of clarity

https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstreams/f975b8b1-c913-40f0-9bd5-7176d585dbc9/download

Please use above link.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

Scotia II 1845

Maybe this???

Blockade Runner Scotia II, ship

Image of Blockade Runner Scotia II; From the Janet & Bedford Hayes Collection

digitalmaine.com

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Story]

Maybe this???

That looks kinda sleek for an 1845 build.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

Does there exist a wiki or other public database of all know blockade runners?

Although strictly not quite a wiki or other public database of all known blockade runners, in 'Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War' by Stephen Wise, found a comprehensive and detailed list of all known blockade runners in the appendices (see pp. 230 to 328).

 

[archieclement]

Has anyone ever seen any estimate of how common or numerous the mostly i assume private smaller sailling runners would been in comparison to the larger more famous steamships?

 

[Ptarmigan]

Maybe this???

View attachment 554782

Blockade Runner Scotia II, ship

Image of Blockade Runner Scotia II; From the Janet & Bedford Hayes Collection

digitalmaine.com

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

This is a picture of the Merrimac belonging to the Confederate ordnance bureau, Scotia II was a single funnel Clyde coastal paddle steamer with a clipper bow .