Blockade Runners of the Confederacy

An authoritative account of blockade running in Civil War history.

Within four weeks of the fall of Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln had declared a blockade of over four thousand miles of Confederate coastline, from Cape Henry in Virginia to the Mexican border. In response, professional runners, lured by both profits and patriotism, built faster, sleeker, low-profile ships and piloted them through the ever-thickening Northern cordon. The tonnage they imported, including items ranging from straight pins to marine engines, sustained the South throughout the conflict. This exciting chronicle of the men and ships that ran federal naval blockades during the Civil War also provides an overall assessment of the blockades conception, effectiveness, and impact on the Southern populace.

Hamilton Cochran served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World Wars I and II. An advertising executive by day, he authored numerous fiction and nonfiction works, most about ships, piracy, and the Caribbean.