390 Chronicles of the Cape Fear Rwer

It was obviously impossible at that time for the Federal
Government to enforce a blockade of the Southern coast, meas-
uring 3,549 miles and containing 189 harbors, besides almost
innumerable inlets and sounds through which small craft might
easily elude the four United States warships then available for
service, the remaining 38 ships of war in commission being on
distant stations. |

Measures were, therefore, taken by the Navy Department to
close the entrances of the most important Southern ports, notably
those of Charleston and Savannah, by sinking vessels loaded
with stone across the main channels or bars. Preparations were
also made on a more extensive plan to destroy the natural road-
steads of other Southern ports and harbors along the coast by
the same means; but, although twenty-five vessels were sunk in
the smaller inlets, it does not appear that this novel method of
blockade was generally adopted.

In the meantime, urgent orders had been sent recalling from
foreign stations every available ship of war; and by December
of the same year the Secretary of the Navy had purchased and
armed 264 ships, which, with their 2,557 guns and 22,000 men,
rendered the “paper blockade” comparatively effective. A
sorry looking fleet it was as compared with our modern navies;
ships, barks, schooners, sloops, tugs, passenger boats—anything
that would carry a gun, from the hoary type of Noah’s Ark to
the double-end ferry boat still conspicuous in New York waters.

“The blockading fleet,” says Judge Advocate Cowley, “was
divided into two squadrons; the Atlantic Blockading Squadron
of 22 vessels, carrying 296 guns and 3,300 men, and the Gulf
Blockading Squadron of 21 vessels, carrying 282 guns and
3,500 men.” This force was constantly increased as the two
hundred specially designed ships of war were built by the Navy
Department. The squadron reached its highest degree of effi-
ciency during the fourth year of the war by the acquisition of
many prizes, which were quickly converted into light draft cruis-
ers and rendered effective naval service, frequently under their
original names.

Tur BtLocKkapErs.

The first blockader placed upon the Cape Fear Station was
one bearing the misnomer Daylight, which appeared July 20,
1861. Others soon followed, until the number of the blockaders

Blockade Running 391

off New Inlet and the Main, or Western, Bar of the river
was increased thirty or more; these formed a cordon every

night in the shape of a crescent, the horns of which were 80
close in shore that it was almost impossible for a small boat to
pass without discovery. Armed picket barges also patrolled
the bars and sometimes crept close in upon the forts. For a

year or more the fleet was largely kept upon the blockading sta-
tions; then a second cordon was placed across the track of the

blockade runners near the ports of Nassau and the Bermudas,
the cruisers of which sometimes violated the international dis-
tance restriction of one league—three geographical miles—
from neutral land. At last a third cordon was drawn on the
edge of the Gulf Stream, to which the hunted and harassed

blockade runner often became an easy prey in the early morn-
ing after a hard night’s run in the darkness, during which no

lights were visible to friend or foe, even the binnacle lamp being
carefully screened, leaving only a small peephole by which the

ship was steered.

Tue CRUISERS.

Some of the later cruisers were faster than the blockade
runners and were more dreaded than the blockading squadron,
not only because of their greater speed, but chiefly because of
the proximity of their consorts, which kept them always in
sight, often to the discomfiture of their unhappy quarry,
headed off and opposed in every direction. The prospective
division of big prize money, running into millions of dollars,
was, of course, the most exciting feature of the service on the
Federal side. Occasionally there was comparatively trifling
compensation, but great enjoyment in the capture of some

small-fry blockade runners, consisting of pilot boats or large
yawls laden with two or three bales of cotton and a crew of three

or four youths, that sometimes came to grief in a most humiliat-
ing way. These small craft, upon one of which the writer was
at sea for two weeks, were too frail for the risk of the longer
voyages, and were usually projected from the small inlets, or
sounds, farther South, which gave them a short run of about
a hundred miles to the outer Bahama Keys, through whose dan-
gerous waters they would warily make their way to Nassau.
A boat of this description sailed over a Florida bar on a dark
night under a favorable wind; but, failing to get out of sight
of land before morning dawned, was overhauled at sunrise by a