Civil War Blockade Papers

Department of Humanities & Communication -
Daytona Beach College of Arts & Sciences
4-2002

The Civil War Gulf Blockade: The Unpublished Journal of a U.S. Navy Warrant Officer Aboard the USS Vincennes, 1861-1864
by Robert M. Oxley

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, [email protected]
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts & Sciences at ERAU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Department of Humanities & Communication - Daytona Beach by an authorized administrator of ERAU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected].

LYNCH’S JOURNAL
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1822, Nicholas Lynch was apprenticed to a sailmaker in his youth. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1859 at the age of 37, and received his warrant as a sailmaker in June 1861. From 1861 to 1877, Lynch kept a journal while on board ship, recording events that were out of the ordinary, his opinions and gripes, lists of equipment and supplies, and occasionally his moods. The autograph manuscript, never published, is written in a fine hand with few emendations. Pages 1–47 cover the Civil War period, 1861–1865, during which time he was aboard the USS Vincennes (1861–1864) and the USS Colorado. He was aboard the Colorado during the two bombardments of Fort Fisher (Wilmington, North Carolina) in December 1864 and January 1865.


https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=db-humanities
2546

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 

Attachments

  • The Civil War Gulf Blockade The Unpublished Journal of a U.S. Navy Warrant Officer Aboard the ...pdf
    311 KB · Views: 50
Not sure if this is of interest to anyone, but I just found a map of Wilmington from the 1850's that can be enlarged enough to see the street names etc. Still have not found one for the 1860's that can be seen in detail (most, when enlarged online, get too grainy to read), but a Wilmington library has been kind enough to look around for me. So, hoping... meanwhile:

https://registerofdeeds.nhcgov.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Map_of_Wilmington_NC
 
Whew! Close to $90 on sale at Amazon! Gees. Hopefully interlibrary loan can find it. Looks very interesting.
By accident, I ended up with a mint copy of the 2nd edition (same as 1st, but reduced size). Will gladly sell it to anyone for $25 and I'll pay postage in US.
 
A paper to go with posts #67 and #68...

Washington University Law Review
Volume 1 | Issue 3
January 1916

The Doctrine of Continuous Voyages

This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected].

It is a well-settled principle of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence that the law will not permit a thing to be done indirectly which cannot legally be done directly. The application of this proposition to International Law has given rise to what is known as the doctrine of continuous voyages.

Originating in the decisions of English prize courts, the principle was chiefly applied and developed in the admiralty courts of Great Britain and the United States until it became a recognized part of International Law in governing the rights of neutrals to trade with belligerents in time of war. The application of the doctrine throughout its history has caused bitter controversy between England and the United States, the two nations which have been most instrumental in securing a place for it in the laws of nations.


https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5649&context=law_lawreview

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 

Attachments

  • The Doctrine of Continuous Voyages.pdf
    486.8 KB · Views: 75
A paper to go with posts #67 and #68...

Washington University Law Review
Volume 1 | Issue 3
January 1916

The Doctrine of Continuous Voyages

This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected].

It is a well-settled principle of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence that the law will not permit a thing to be done indirectly which cannot legally be done directly. The application of this proposition to International Law has given rise to what is known as the doctrine of continuous voyages.

Originating in the decisions of English prize courts, the principle was chiefly applied and developed in the admiralty courts of Great Britain and the United States until it became a recognized part of International Law in governing the rights of neutrals to trade with belligerents in time of war. The application of the doctrine throughout its history has caused bitter controversy between England and the United States, the two nations which have been most instrumental in securing a place for it in the laws of nations.

https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5649&context=law_lawreview

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
Yes, excellent. thank you very much. This is very useful for my roving blockader, who sometimes has trouble getting his captured ruled as prizes in the courts. Wonderful.
 
California Law Review
Volume 3 | Issue 4 Article 2
May 1915

Freedom of Neutral Commerce
by Edward Elliott

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the California Law Review at Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in California Law Review by an authorized administrator of Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected].

The struggle of neutrals with belligerents to secure the freedom of their trade is as old as the modem European states themselves. Some of the earliest of the regulations touching the matter are to be found in the Consolato del Mare, a collection of sea laws published in Barcelona in the fourteenth century. The origin of these laws was most probably on the shores of the Mediterranean, where they had developed out of the commercial intercourse carried on among the cities.

https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4110&context=californialawreview
2754

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 

Attachments

  • Freedom of Neutral Commerce.pdf
    163.5 KB · Views: 45
Calling all accountants and business people: does anyone have a source for the COSTS associated with blockade running (wharfage/dockage, warehouses, stowage, freight costs for rail transport, auctioneers, cotton compressing, renting slave labor for loading/unloading etc etc)? I am specifically interested in what I can find for Wilmington from 1861 to 1864 (I assume that prices will vary a lot over this period). Lifeline of the Confederacy gives a few scattered numbers, but not quite enough to piece together a business plan. I have looked through some editions of the Wilmington Journal from 1862, and though they list cotton prices in Liverpool (quite useful) I see little else that gives me a sense for this. Help anyone? Thank you !!
 
Small Arms Deliveries Through Wilmington, NC In 1863
The Impact on Confederate Ordnance Policy
by Howard Michael Madaus

...What did the five vessels of the Confederate Ordnance Department fleet accomplish? First and foremost they demonstrated that blockade running could successfully be carried out between the relatively obscure ports of St. George’s and Wilmington. Secondly, although the fleet was not responsible for all of 113,000 small arms imported into the Confederacy during the second fiscal year of the Confederacy’s existence, its ships did contribute heavily to those importations. So much so, in fact that it was possible to re-fit Lee’s Army with new English rifle-muskets after its retreat from Gettysburg. The balance of those English arms not sent to Lee’s Army were sent to Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. During the Winter of 1863–1864, the balance of the English small arms, and most of the Austrian longarms that had come through Wilmington re-equipped the Army of Tennessee with for the first time, a majority of rifled arms in lieu of the smoothbore weaponry with which most of the infantry had been armed since 1861...

http://americansocietyofarmscollect...ilmington-North-Carolina-1863-B085_Nadaus.pdf
2807

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 

Attachments

  • Small Arms Deliveries Through Wilmington, NC In 1863.pdf
    603.3 KB · Views: 33
Calling all accountants and business people: does anyone have a source for the COSTS associated with blockade running (wharfage/dockage, warehouses, stowage, freight costs for rail transport, auctioneers, cotton compressing, renting slave labor for loading/unloading etc etc)? I am specifically interested in what I can find for Wilmington from 1861 to 1864 (I assume that prices will vary a lot over this period). Lifeline of the Confederacy gives a few scattered numbers, but not quite enough to piece together a business plan. I have looked through some editions of the Wilmington Journal from 1862, and though they list cotton prices in Liverpool (quite useful) I see little else that gives me a sense for this. Help anyone? Thank you !!
I can get you wharfage, RR freight costs and slave labor, and maybe one or two others, but it will take 2 or 3 days.
 
You truly have an amazing collection of articles. This one on naval intelligence is of particular interest to me. Thanks for sharing it (and all of them).
Read this yesterday. Lots and lots of FUN. Highly recommended. Not only gives an analysis of what they were looking for, how they looked, and how they used the information, but also gives an overview of intelligence gathering and how it changed/evolved during the war. For the eyes of spies only!
 
I want to comment on the subject of the blockade. So I will use this thread to do that. The south was surrounded by navigable water and the Confederacy was about the same. Starting with the Potomac River, Chesapeake Bay, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River and the Ohio River, it was surrounded by water.
Most of the densely settled areas, and primary cities and towns, were also on rivers that were navigable at times. Those rivers were the Missouri, the Cumberland, and others.
 
Back
Top