— Ch. 1 · Origins And Strategy —
Blockade runners of the American Civil War.
~6 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
On the 12th of April 1861, the American Civil War erupted with the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter. The newly formed Confederate States of America possessed no navy to speak of in those early months. President Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation on April 17 offering letters of marque to anyone willing to provide ships for the Confederacy. This desperate measure aimed to bypass the Union blockade that General Winfield Scott had devised as his Anaconda Plan. Lincoln's first proclamation called for 75,000 troops just two days after the attack on Fort Sumter. By April 19, he threatened the Confederacy with a full-scale blockade along its coastlines. The plan extended from the Atlantic Ocean down to the Gulf of Mexico and up into the lower Mississippi River. Thaddeus Stevens angrily criticized this strategy as a great blunder that recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent power. Despite these criticisms, the blockade became the primary tool used by the Union Navy to strangle the Southern economy. The Confederacy lacked industrial resources to produce arms or supplies needed to fight a prolonged war. British investors stepped forward to fill this critical gap in the Confederate supply chain.
British Investment And Construction
British merchants served as the primary shipbuilders and source of military supplies throughout the conflict. In 1862, more than 75 percent of textile workers in Britain were unemployed due to the cotton embargo imposed by the Confederacy. This economic pressure forced Britain to turn to other nations like Egypt and India for badly needed raw materials. The Confederate government subsequently lifted their cotton embargo and began selling it at reduced prices to win back British trading partners. James Dunwoody Bulloch arrived in Liverpool inside two months after the attack on Fort Sumter to establish his base of operations. He made contact with Confederate Commissioners William Yancey and Dudley Mann in London. Bulloch then established a relationship with the shipping firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Company. They arranged for the buying and selling of cotton while being ultimately responsible for shipping approximately seven-eighths of all cotton exported from the Southern states during the war. Bulloch also arranged for the construction and purchase of the Florida, the Alabama, and the Shenandoah. In 1863 he contracted with the Laird shipyard for the construction of two ironclad rams intended to break the Union blockade. When British authorities seized these vessels, Bulloch turned to France to commission the Stonewall.