3.  England was dependent on the South for raw cotton, and would sell for it everything the South wanted in exchange.

The blockade, therefore, was to cut off the trade and supplies of the South, and so weaken her.  But as England, a great commercial nation, wanted her cotton, it was certain that unless the blockade were rigorous and close, cotton would be smuggled out and supplies sent in.

%456.  Blockade Runners%.—­This is just what did happen.  The blockade in the course of a year was made close, by ships stationed off the ports, sounds, and harbors.  In some places the hulks of old whalers were loaded with stone and sunk in the channels, and to get in or out became more difficult.  As a result the price of cotton fell to eight cents a pound in the South (because there was nobody to buy it) and rose to fifty cents a pound in England (because so little was to be had).  Then “running the blockade” became a regular business.  Goods of all sorts were brought from England to Nassau in the West Indies, where they would be put on board of vessels built to run the blockade.  These blockade runners were long, low steam vessels which drew only a few feet of water and had great speed.  Their hulls were but a few feet out of water and were painted a dull gray.  Their smokestacks could be lowered to the deck, and they burned anthracite coal, which made no smoke.  They would leave Nassau at such a time as would enable them to be off Wilmington, N.C., or some other Southern port, on a moonless night with a high tide, and then, making a dash, would run through the blockading vessels.  Once in port, they would take a cargo of cotton, and would run out on a dark night or during a storm.  During the war, 1504 vessels of all kinds were captured or destroyed.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Read T. E. Taylor’s Running the Blockade, pp. 16-32, 44-54.]

%457.  The Commerce Destroyers.%—­While the North was thus busy destroying the trade of the South, the South was busy destroying the enormous trade of the North.  When the war opened, our merchant ships were to be seen in every port of the world, and against these were sent a class of armed vessels known as “commerce destroyers,” whose business it was to cruise along the great highways of ocean commerce, keep a sharp lookout for our merchantmen, and burn all they could find.  The first of these commerce destroyers to get to sea was the Sumter, which ran the blockade at the mouth of the Mississippi in June, 1861, and within a week had taken seven merchantmen.  So important was it to capture her that seven cruisers were sent in pursuit.  But she escaped them all till January, 1862, when she was shut up in the port of Gibraltar and was sold to prevent capture.