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Updated: July 27, 2025
I consider that the only chances the blockading squadron had of capturing a blockade-runner were in the following instances; viz., in a fair chase in daylight, when superior speed would tell, or chasing her on shore, or driving her in so near the beach that her crew were driven to set fire to her and make their escape; in which case a prize might be made, though perhaps of no great value; or frightening a vessel by guns and rockets during the night into giving up.
At midnight two boat-loads of determined men, rowing with muffled oars moved silently out from the blockader towards the beached vessel. In their boats they had some cans of turpentine, and several large shells. When they reached the blockade-runner they found all her crew gone ashore, save one watchman, whom they overpowered before he could give the alarm.
It was a flagrant outrage from beginning to end; for I had the same rights in Nassau that you and your father had, and both of you abused the hospitality of the place when you assaulted me." "You were a prisoner of the Confederacy, and had escaped in a blockade-runner; and I thought it was no more than right that you should be returned to your prison," Percy explained.
The gang of 'longshoremen, which was quickly sent on board the Hattie by the Englishman to whom we referred in the last chapter, worked to such good purpose that in just forty-eight hours from the time her lines were made fast to the wharf, the blockade-runner was ready for her return trip.
"The fog is lifting just now, as it has been doing all the evening, and we can see the fort. There are very few people about; for it cannot be an uncommon event to see a blockade-runner get under way." It was not probable that any of the persons in sight were soldiers, for they had abundant opportunity to see all there was to be seen within the solid walls that sheltered them.
At this time the preparations for the reduction of the forts on the Mississippi were in progress, and every available vessel was called into activity. The Bronx had been built for a blockade-runner, and for a steamer of her size she was of exceptional speed.
Directly in front of the sea face of the fort, and not four hundred yards from the savage mouths of the huge guns, the blackened timbers of a burned blockade-runner showed above the water at low tide. Coming in from Nassau with a cargo of priceless value to the gasping Confederacy, she was observed and chased by one of our vessels, a swifter sailer, even, than herself.
The first night I passed off Syra was one of great anxiety, as I had promised the Governor of Crete that no blockade-runner should go to the island. In the morning a small steamer arrived from Athens with a Turkish official on board.
"I call her a pirate because she looks like one; but I think a blockade-runner is a hundred degrees better than a pirate; and our British friends plainly look upon them as doing a legitimate business. I rather think that highflyer will run into a fog before she gets to the shore." "She has nothing to fear from the two steamers that are chasing her," added Christy.
No doubt you will have to do it; but you'll not make many more trips on that blockade-runner. It'll not be long before all our ports will be sealed up tight as a brick by swift steamers, and sailing vessels will stand no show of getting out or in. I know Lon Beardsley, and he will quit blockade running when he thinks it's time, the same as he quit privateering.
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