Blockade Runners Getting Sick of Business

Belle Montgomery

2nd Lieutenant
Joined
Oct 25, 2017
Location
44022
From the Cleveland Daily Leader 12-31-1864 :

Blockade Runner Jeff Davis Cleveland Leader 12-31-1864.jpg
 
From the Cleveland Daily Leader 12-31-1864 :

View attachment 394724
The Confederate government's shift from a laisse faire market-based blockade running policy was based upon two associated issues: it was actually becoming very difficult to accumulate out-going cargoes in volumes of commercial interest and there came to be a pronounced shift in the types of incoming cargoes to meet government needs, ie equipment to bolster infrastructure for manufacturing. Many of these latter materials were difficult loads for the smaller runners and the possibility of larger profits much less than shipment of consumer goods. You also had two parallel attempts going on simultaneously with State and National owned or leased runners with Naval officers in command to meet the Confederacy's needs. Union imprisonment of runner officers including engineers should be considered as a naval version of the Army's policy shift to greatly limit prisoner exchanges. But there doesn't appear to have been a major reduction in men willing to crew the runners. I suspect that as the blockade became more effective and older, cheaper, slower runners were caught in large numbers, many of the financial backers of the blockade-running firms balked at raising the large sums necessary to build advanced runners still effective. There was also a limit as to how many of the newer type runners could be turned out in the Clyde and Mersey yards. There may have been a shortage of quality materials for these boats, as there were complaints about the workmanship on a number of the later runners, especially those with steel hulls. It is interesting to note how both State and National government agencies were in a race with time trying to set up infrastructure to reduce dependence on imported goods. Perhaps the greatest strategic logistic deficiency in the south did not involve the runners. The southern distribution system (railways) was subject to Union attacks and maintenance issues. The south was an agricultural economy with portions of the military and civilian population facing malnutrition due to an inability to ship farm goods to market before they spoiled.
 
Blockade runners were mostly in it for the money, not the patriotism. When it was no longer good business they took their money and went elsewhere.
With the exceptions of certain commissioned officers of the Confederacy who skippered and staffed state and CSA-owned runners, such as John Wilkinson and John Newland Maffitt. They definitely weren't in it for the money...
 
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