Continued from the June 24th Raleigh News & Observer. My last entry for this long, but informative article was June 27th.
THE BLOCKADE
Well, it was the job of the blockade-runners to do just that. On the other side, it was the job of the Union Navy to prevent that from happening. And that job was generally extremely tedious. Month after month of cruising back and forth, scanning horizons day and night, but especially being ready on moonless nights, a favorite running time.
And, it could get quite hot and quite cold and let's not forget storms.
Still, many sailors considered this a better alternative than fighting ashore. The runners weren't generally armed and wouldn't fight back. Crews of them were often foreign-born, and if captured could only be held temporarily.
Besides regular pay, blockaders could divvy up prize money if their ship captured a runner, as much as a year's pay in some instances. There were accusations of some blockaders chasing runners out of sight of others before capturing the vessel. All blockaders in sight got to split the prize money.
THE RUNNERS
Life aboard the runners was generally tense as they had to "run" through the blockade, which generally was going to entail some shellfire and tense moments. Chances of getting through were around 75%. The ships would leave from neutral ports like Bermuda, especially for Wilmington, but also occasionally from Nassau. Larger ships brought goods to those ports from overseas (mostly England) where they were off-loaded onto smaller, quicker runners. They would depart, timing their final approach to coincide with night.
Still More to Come. --Old B-Runner
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