Wilmington Comes Under the Gun-- Part 1

JANUARY 1, 1864:

As the new year opened, the Union once more focused its attention on Wilmington, NC. Since 1862, the Navy had pressed for a combined attack with the Army to close this major blockade-running port, in an ideal position just 600 miles from Nassau and 675 from Bermuda.

Despite its increasingly tighter blockade, runners continued to come in and out of the port. Some essentially almost ran regular schedule.

In the fall of 1863, a British observer reported that 13 steamers ran into Wilmington between 10 and 29 September. (In my entries Benjamin Lewis Blackford reported many runs.) James Randall, a Wilmington shipping firm employee, reported that 397 ships visited Wilmington the first two and a half-three years of the war.

--Old B-Runner