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Blockade Running 413

Lookout. It would be more perilous to run out to sea than to
continue on our course, for we had passed through the off-shore
line of blockaders, and the sky had become perfectly clear. I
determined to personate a transport bound to Beaufort, a port
which was in possession of the United States forces and the coal-
ing station of the fleet blockading Wilmington. The risk of
detection was not very great, for many of the captured blockade
runners were used as transports and dispatch vessels. Shaping
our course for Beaufort, and slowing down, as if we were in no
haste to get there, we passed several vessels, showing United
States colors to them all. Just as we were crossing the ripple
of shallow water off the ‘tail’ of the shoals, we dipped our colors
to a sloop-of-war which passed three or four miles to the south
of us. The courtesy met prompt response; but I have no doubt
her captain thought me a lubberly and careless seaman to shave

the shoals so closely. We stopped the engines when no vessels
were in sight; and I was relieved from a heavy burden of.

anxiety as the sun sank below the horizon, and our course was
shaped at full speed for Masonboro Inlet.

“The staid old town of Wilmington was turned ‘topsy-turvy’
during the war. Here resorted speculators from all parts of
the South to attend the weekly auctions of imported cargoes ;
and the town was infested with rogues and desperadoes, who
made a livelihood by robbery and murder. It was unsafe to
venture into the suburbs at night, and even in daylight there
were frequent conflicts in the public streets between the crews
of steamers in port and the soldiers stationed in the town, in
which knives and pistols would be freely used; and not infre-
quently a dead body with marks of violence upon it would rise
to the surface of the water in one of the docks. The civil au-
thorities were powerless to prevent crime. ‘Inter arma silent
leges’! The agents and employees of different blockade-running
companies lived in magnificent style, paying a king’s ransom (in
Confederate money) for their household expenses, and nearly
monopolizing the supplies in the country market. Towards the
end of the war, indeed, fresh provisions were almost beyond the
reach of every one. Our family servant, newly arrived from
the country in Virginia, would sometimes return from market
with an empty basket, having flatly refused to pay what he
called ‘such nonsense prices’ for a bit of fresh beef or a handful
of vegetables. A quarter of lamb, at the time of which I now
write, sold for $100; a pound of tea, for $500. Confederate