The Blockade Runners of the American Civil War

25. The blockade runners prolonged the war and its carnage

The south lacked the basic materials to make war against the United States, as well as the ability to manufacture them in 1861. Before hostilities began ships arrived to supply them, and they continued to supply the Confederate states up to the final days of the war. Some blockade runners were motivated simply by profit. Others had more patriotic motivations, at least on the Southern side. The American National Archives contains vast files of the papers kept by the companies created to trade between Great Britain and the Confederate States of America, and the ships involved in suppressing them. The records document more than 3,000 attempts to run the blockade, and a success rate of nearly 80%.

Without the efforts of the blockade runners, the war would have been considerably shorter. The South simply did not produce the materials to support its armies in the field. The story of the blockade runners is a little studied aspect of the American Civil War and the British involvement in it, though the British government never officially recognized the Confederacy as an independent nation. Some men made large fortunes selling the materials of war during a conflict in which hundreds of thousands died. It’s a story worth knowing.