Skeleton of American history emerges from storm
A
total of 588 blockade-runners would emerge from English ports during the
war -- shipping 8,250 cargoes worth two million dollars the South paid
for these imports with 1,250,000 bales of cotton. The majority of the
runners sailed from Liverpool and some from Glasgow, with the North
viewing this activity “as virtually tantamount to a participation in the
war by the people of Great Britain . . . “
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
British-Built Blockade Runners
“In
the early stages of the war every type of ship was used to break the
blockade. But from 1862 onwards only steamers specially built or
modified could slip through the Federal screen. Jones, Quiggin and
Company of Liverpool built at least sixteen blockade runners between
1862 and 1865. The Banshee, Lucy, Wild Dayrell, Bat, Badger, Colonel
Lamb, Fox, Georgia, Belle, Hope, Lynx, Owl, Curlew, Hornet, Plover,
Snipe, and Widgeon were all steel or iron paddle steamers of around 400
tons gross weight and were admirably built to evade the Federal ships.
W.H.
Potter and sons in 1864 built two ships of a similar type, the Deer and
Dream, while William C. Miller and Son created not only the
Oreto/Florida and the unfortunate Alexandra but the successful
blockade-runners Phantom, Let Her B, Celia, Abigail, and Ray. Bowdler,
Chaffer and Company of Seacombe, in 1864, launched the Secret and the
Stag, and, in 1865, the Swan.
The
Laird Brothers produced not only the wooden-screw Alabama (the Oreto
and the Alexandra were also wooden-screw steamers), and the steel rams,
but five steel paddle-steamers, the Wren, Lark, Mary, Isabel, and
Penguin, and the Robert Todd, an iron screw. All ships were especially
suited to the swift maneuvers essential in blockade-running.
Most
of these blockade-runners were bought and run by Liverpool trading
firms. Edward Lawrence and Company, the firm for which Tom Taylor
worked as a supercargo throughout the war, and in which he eventually
became a partner, owned the Banshee, a notorious blockade-runner with at
least seven successful round trips to her credit before her capture.
A
second Banshee was built and run by Aitken and Mansell and was again
managed by the Liverpool firm. Tom Taylor himself was lauded by Colonel
[William] Lamb, commandant of Fort Fisher, for his “coolness and
daring” and his generosity with food and luxuries to the
poverty-stricken Confederates.
A
number of blockade-runners were owned by the ship builders themselves –
who no doubt made far more profit with them than would have ever been
possible through straightforward sales. William Quiggin of Jones,
Quiggin and Company, owned the Bat, the Hope and the Colonel Lamb, which
like the Phantom, roused [US consul to Liverpool Thomas H.] Dudley’s
suspicions when it was being built.
The
Colonel Lamb was in fact sold by Quiggin to J.B. Lafitte of Nassau, but
was never the property of the Confederacy, although it was one of the
most notorious and successful blockade-runners under Liverpudlian
Captain Tom Lockwood. T. Quiggin also owned the Owl, which was sold to
[James] Bulloch for the Confederacy, as were Bat of the same firm and
the Deer and the Stag – these were among the few blockade-runners owned
by the Confederacy itself. The Owl was to successfully run the blockade
till the end of the war.
The
financial advisor to the Confederacy, Charles Prioleau, of Frazer,
Trenholm and Company, bought several ships for trade with the South.
Prioleau also purchased the Flora, the fastest steamer of her day, and
one which was to be a bane to the North.”
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