CH. XII] BLOCKADE-RUNNING 379 wise Welsh semi-bituminous coal. Nassau was the most important neutral, and Charleston and Wilmington the most important Confederate, ports in this trade. The blockaderunner left Nassau at an hour that would bring her off Charleston or Wilmington at night and the running of the blockade was rarely attempted unless there was no moon. When near the blockading squadron all lights were put out, the engine-room hatchways and binnacle were covered with tarpaulin and the steamer made her way forward in utter darkness. No noise was permitted; necessary orders and reports of soundings were given in muffled voices; steam was blown off under water. Often the blockaderunners escaped without being seen; sometimes they were chased but escaped; sometimes the pursuit was so hard that they ran ashore or were captured. It was a keenly contested game between these and the blockaders, only to be played by those loving the sea. The tales of the blockade-runners are highly interesting, full as they are of the spice of adventure. Battling with the sea in overloaded craft, specially constructed to avoid other danger; feeling their way through the blockading squadron; now painfully making their port without regularly set lights, now detected, pursued and resorting to all manner of tricks to elude the pursuers; loving fog, darkness and mystery they were cool, fearless, nervy men and their stories are highly romantic. Less thrilling the tale of the blockader. The blockade-runner chose his own time and had the excitement of the attempt, but the blockader must be ever vigilant throughout long periods of inaction. After days and nights of anxious watching, the emergency, lasting brief minutes, might come when least expected. The great extent of coast, much of it having a double line with numerous inlets, — and the necessity for the blockading 380 BLOCKADE-RUNNING [1864 ships to ride out the gales at anchor, close to a hostile shore, made of this blockade an operation that for difficulty was probably without precedent: it was certainly the first time that the evaders of a blockade had the powerful help of steam. The eager desire to obtain cotton was another factor operating to the advantage of the blockade-runners as was likewise the proximity of friendly neutral ports. The effective work of the United States navy is measured by the number of captures and by the increasing difficulty of evading the blockade. Gradually port after port was practically closed until none were left but Charleston and Wilmington. Wilmington, owing to the peculiar configuration and character of the coast and the large island at the entrance of Cape Fear river, was the most difficult port of all to blockade and in 1863 and 1864 its trade with Nassau and Bermuda was large. On June 16, 1863, Fremantle, passing through Wilmington, counted "eight large steamers, all handsome, leaden-colored vessels, which ply their trade with the greatest regularity." Blockade-running to and from port continued until the taking of Fort Fisher in January, 1865, but the risk of capture during the last six months of activity was great. Charleston remained open until Sherman's northward march compelled its evacuation, but for a long while before this only the best-constructed steamers could run the blockade and the success even of these was rare. The work of the United States navy in/ the blockade was an affair of long patience unrelieved by the prospect of brilliant exploits; lacking the stimulus of open battle it required discipline and character only the more. But the reward to the country was great for the blockade played an important part in the final outcome of the war. The cotton crops were made by the negro slaves and one CH. XIIJ THE NEGRO SLAVES 381 of the strange things in this eventful history is the peaceful labor of three and one-half million negro slaves whose presence in the South was the cause of the war and whose freedom was fought for after September, 1862, by the North-/ ern soldiers. The evidence warrants the oft-repeated statement that the blacks made no move to rise. "A thousand torches," Henry Grady declared, "would have disbanded the Southern army but there was not one." Instead of rising they remained patiently submissive and faithful to their owners. It was their labor that produced food for the soldiers fighting to keep them in slavery, and without them the cotton could not have been grown, which brought supplies from Europe and the North. Our great strength, declared a Confederate Army staff officer, consists in our system of slave labor because it "makes our 8,000,000 productive of fighting material equal to the 20,000,000 of the North." One owner or overseer to every twenty slaves was exempt from military service in order "to secure the proper police of the country," but a study of the conditions indicates that these were needed not as a restraining influence but for the purposes of intelligent direction. As a matter of fact, the able-bodied negroes remained on the plantations of the sparsely settled country of the Confederacy while, with few exceptions, the white people in the neighborhood were old or diseased men, women and children. Here is a remarkable picture and one that discovers virtues in the Southern negroes and merit in the civilization under which they had been trained. The slaves came to know of Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation and had a vague idea that the success of the Northern arms would set them free. As the Union armies penetrated into the country, negroes in great number, who had fanciful ideas of what freedom meant, followed 382 CONSCRIPTION AT THE SOUTH [1862 them, often to the manifest inconvenience of the commanders. The slaves were friendly to the Union soldiers whom they encountered; they fed any who escaped from Southern prisons and, by handing them on from one to another, guided them to the Federal lines. At the same time they would conceal the valuables of their mistresses lest they should be stolen by the camp followers and stragglers of the Union Army, showing some craft in keeping the hiding-places secret. Thus they maintained a divided allegiance. Many Confederate officers were saved from death or capture by the care and devotion of their bodyservants while other negroes served as guides to Union generals when important offensive movements were on foot. The South came to conscription sooner than the North. An act of April 16, 1862, prompted by the Southern reverses, chief of which was the capture of Fort Donelson, placed in the military service all white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. An act of September 27 of the same year extended the conscription to all white men between thirty-five and forty-five but at first only those of forty or under were enrolled, but directly after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, President Davis ordered that all between forty and forty-five should be included in the enrolment. On February 17, 1864, the Confederate Congress passed an act requiring that all white men between seventeen and fifty should be in the military service.1 "They have robbed the cradle and the grave," said Grant. As men became weary of the war desertion was more common. Compulsory service was disliked and evaded by many whenever possible. Homesickness and the 1 Those between 17 and 18 and 45 and 50 should constitute a reserve for State defence and should not be called beyond the limits of their own State. CH. XII] DESERTERS AT THE SOUTH 383 wretched fare in the army were prolific causes of this abandonment of duty. Gettysburg and Vicksburg were potent arguments with the Southern people. "Dear Seddon, wrote a friend from Mobile, "we are without doubt gone up." 2 Soldiers deserted by the hundreds; even whole regiments left at a time. Deserters almost always carried their muskets and when halted and asked for their authority to be absent from the army would "pat their guns and say defiantly, 'This is my furlough. In the mountain fastnesses of South Carolina, bold and defiant deserters were banded together; with travelling threshing machines they worked their farms in common and congregated at still yards and houses where they distilled quantities of liquor and swore vengeance on any one who should attempt their arrest. Summing up the mass of evidence which came to the War Department, Judge Campbell 3 wrote, "The condition of things in the mountain districts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama menaces the existence of the Confederacy as fatally as either of the armies of the United States." 4 The much rarer references to desertion in the official papers of 1864, the somewhat satisfied tone of Seddon's report of April 28 of that year, the full ranks of Lee's and Johnston's armies and their heroic resistance are evidence that, through the influence of public sentiment and the persistently rigorous measures of the Government the evil of desertion had by that time been greatly mitigated. The military operations of the autumn of 1864, however, resulted in disaster to the Confederates whilst Lincoln's reelection amounted to a notification that there would be no cessation of the vigorous onward movement of the 1 The Secretary of War. 2 July 24, 1863. |