Perspectives on Nassau and Blockade Running, 1860–1865

By Keith Tinker

Blockade running to Nassau provides a review of national and international events in which the small, traditionally poor British colonial outpost in the Bahamas became a pivotal transshipment point for the movement of supplies and commodities between the federal-blockaded confederate states and merchant houses, commodity markets, and shipyards in a technically neutral Great Britain.

During the American Civil War (1860–1865), Nassau benefitted significantly from facilitating the brisk international trade through warehouse storage, handling, and collection of brokerage fees and taxes. Thousands of international guests descended upon the colonial island capital to buy and sell critically demanded supplies of cotton destined for English mills and arms, food, medicines, and other essential goods denied the Southern states. Nassau thrived economically during the period, drawing hundreds of people from other islands in the chain to migrate to Nassau in search of employment. As a result, many out-island communities were abandoned as the demographic shift divided families when parents left children in the care of other kin or friends to follow the “yellow-brick road” leading to Nassau. Crime levels and food prices rose significantly during the years of conflict. In 1865, the conflict ended, the blockade was lifted, and the transshipment of goods through Nassau ceased.

Once again, the islands reverted into abject poverty, leaving many unemployed still settled in overcrowded conditions in Nassau. Adding insult to injury, a hurricane devastated the islands that year and virtually destroyed many of the infrastructural public work improvements implemented with the increased public purse created by facilitation of the blockade running activities of the previous years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984554260

Keith Tinker

to be followed

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Copyright © 2018 by Keith Tinker.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2018911146

ISBN:                  Hardcover                      978-1-9845-5425-3

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CONTENTS

Preface

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prelude To The Blockade

The Bahamas: A Brief Historical Sketch

Nassau: Before The Blockade

The Confederacy And Blockade-Running

The Importance Of Coal And Steam

Nassau And Blockade-Running

The Blockade And International Diplomacy

Newspaper And Consular (Nassau) Dispatches

Successes And Failures

Epilogue: Civil War Sentiments

Tables

Endnotes

Bibliography

PREFACE

NASSAU AND BLOCKADE-RUNNING, 1860–1865

The nearly seven hundred islands and cays of the Bahamas archipelago stretch over some 760 miles. Grand Bahama, Abaco, and Bimini are situated about sixty miles off the southeast coast of Florida. To the southeast of the chain, Great Inagua is about the same distance from the coast of Cuba and seven hundred miles from that of Haiti. One of the Bahama Islands, San Salvador, is generally accepted as the first island in the New World to be sighted and visited by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Each island patch comprises, in most instances, a large island or two and numerous cays and jutting rocks. On the central island of New Providence is the location of Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, hub of commerce and finance, the seat of government, and one of the better-known vacation spots in the world.

In the late 1700s, during the American War of Independence, it was against Nassau that the first American international military invasion was directed and to where one of the earliest mass migration of people from America to another territory moved. In the 1860s, Nassau became the site for one of the largest blockade-running enterprises conducted during the American Civil War. Blockade-running through Nassau produced a tremendous boast in local trade in the islands but with consequential increases in the price of consumer goods and housing and in the crime rate. The four years of boisterous and lucrative smuggling, however, ended in 1865 when the civil conflict ceased. That same year, a horrific hurricane engulfed Nassau and destroyed many businesses that emerged and expanded during the civil war years. Still, life in the islands ebbed back to one of meager subsistence. The price of commodities and housing and the crime rate reverted to pre–civil war conditions.¹

The genesis of this book began primarily with research on my master’s thesis, which focused on blockade-running to Nassau during the United States Civil War. Much of the material used then was excerpted either from the thesis or from other secondary sources on the subject. In August 2017, I decided to embark on a journey to become better acquainted with the geography of blockade-running particularly from some of the major ports situated along the Gulf and Southern Atlantic states. I willingly acquiesced to the urge to visit the port cities of Galveston, Mobile, and New Orleans situated along the Gulf of Mexico. Next came Gainesville in Florida, Savanna, Georgia, Charleston, and Wilmington in North Carolina. I included a visit to Richmond, the headquarters of the Confederacy States of America, the rebel command center through which communication regarding blockade-running to and from the South were channeled. While in the South, places like Manassas, Gettysburg, and Fort Sumter evolved from mere historic sites associated with the civil war through literature to places where I could visit and associate memorials with research. I visited Washington DC, the headquarters of the Union and command center of the naval blockade forces. Finally, I visited New York from where supplies vital to the survival of the Confederacy were sometimes channeled.

Along the odyssey I embarked on that August, rivers and waterways associated with the running of the blockade became points of interest as I attempted to imagine the strategies implemented by the Union blockaders to intercept some of the blockade-runners I mention in this book. My research taught me that much of the United States Civil War was fought on the myriad waterways that interlace the nation. Skirmishes and epic battles were waged on rivers, along muddy banks and at the bottleneck of bridges. Military strategists on both sides were fully aware that the success and failure of the war depended largely on the need to adequately supply food for men and beasts of burden, create and maintain lines of communication, and become aware of the landscape and precision of maps.

John Keegan noted that roads were still conceived as part of an internal waterway-portage system, harking back to the wilderness days of the eighteenth century.² The Coastal Survey Maps of 1861 would have depicted a vast territory virtually dominated by numerous rivers, lakes, and streams, with many of the few charted dirt roads and trails ending at the bank of rivers, without bridges. This explains in part why Union strategists implemented the coastal blockade, or as some derisively referred, Scott’s Anaconda.³ Union strategy was to include blockade of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to deny Confederate access. Later in the conflict, Union strategists targeted the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers to deny the Confederates access to the vast resources of western states. To this end, in early 1862, General Grant transported troops on steamers up the Tennessee River into the heartland of rebel territory and, under the fire cover of ironclads, captured Forts Henry and Donelson.

My early research informed me that rivers, indeed, helped to shape the war both strategically and tactically. Thus, my urge to visit as many of these critically significant waterways as practical to become better acquainted with my subject. Passing through Jacksonville, Florida, I could see the sprawling St. Johns and St. Mary Rivers. Today, ships continue to ply between the Port of Jacksonville and Nassau Harbor transporting goods from Atlantic seaboard states to the Bahamas. In Georgia, the Savannah River flows in a serpentine fashion past Fort Pulaski to the city of Savannah from where thousands of bales of cotton were illegally shipped to Nassau. Similarly, in North Carolina, the Cape Fear tidal river snakes along more than seventeen miles to connect with the Savannah River and the Atlantic Ocean.

I crossed the Potomac River while traveling from Virginia to Maryland and reminisced on the Union fiasco that took place nearby at Ball’s Bluff. It was in October 1861 that Union troops crossed the river into Virginia seeking to demonstrate their perceived superior military prowess against what they imagined to be a small number of poorly equipped rebel troops camped nearby. The ill-advised crossing, attempted in a few skiffs, exposed the federal troops to the well-prepared and capable rebel troops. The river proved to be too deep to ford, and some of the soldiers could not swim. The result was a calculated slaughter of hapless Union soldiers trapped in small boats on a raging river. The Potomac became symbolically important as a boundary between the opposing forces. It was a moat near Washington DC, the federal capital, but flowed to within twenty-five miles of a Confederate army camped twenty-five miles away in Manassas. As Jonathan Earle noted, The Potomac was a psychological border as well as a physical one. As soon as secession happened, the Potomac became the most important river in the Civil War.⁴

The odyssey took me to South Carolina and across the Ashley River, a tidal river that rises from the Wassamassaw and Great Cypress Swamp in Berkeley County. The Ashley figured significantly in civil war history as one of the most important waterway conduits for the attempted run of the Union blockade. The river joins the Cooper River off the Battery in Charleston Harbor and discharges into the Atlantic Ocean. Because Charleston was one of the most important of the Confederate cities, Union officials placed great emphasis in implementing a strong naval blockade to prevent runners seeking access to the Ashley. Next, I crossed the Delaware River and toured the Fort Delaware situated on the river on Peach Patch Island. During the civil war, the fort was used to contain Confederate prisoners of war and rum runners. In 1862, the Philadelphia Inquirer referred to Peach Patch Island as the island that contained an average population of southerners who came at the invitation of Mr. Lincoln.⁵

My journey across some of the most significant waterways connected with the civil war has given a wider and deeper appreciation for the operations of the blockade-runners and the Union blockaders. I was catapulted from the manuscript notations on these rivers to actual sight of the geographical location of the waterways, thus providing me with a better understanding of the importance of the waterways to both conflicting sides in deciding strategic policies that impacted the successes and failures that ensued.

DEDICATION

For Ruth, the primary source of constant encouragement to me to use my latent, God-given talent to research and disseminate material through the medium of lectures, articles, and books.

Thanks for inspiring this new work, which is based mostly on old research. While we waited in the Logan Airport in Boston for a return flight to New York, you suggested that my master’s thesis should be explored further and expanded upon. And so, this suggestion has now become a reality.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work describes the impact of blockade-running during the civil war between the American states in the 1860s on the mostly innocuous, almost inconspicuous, and traditionally somnolent Anglo-colonial outpost of Nassau, Bahamas. Some material is based on notes this author researched many years ago to develop his master’s thesis for graduation from the Florida Atlantic University in 1982. The topic then, as it is now, was intriguing for this Bahamian historian who was then only just becoming aware of the intricate yet significant and continuously intertwining history of his native islands with that of the United States of America.

In 2010, English-born historic architect Colin Brooker, with whom I forged a professional relationship spanning several years, introduced me to Dr. Stephen Wise, author of a work titled Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War (University of South Carolina Press, 1998). Dr. Wise was director of the South Carolina, Parris Island Museum, and I was then engaged (as I am once again) as the director of the National Museum of the Bahamas. In his work, Dr. Wise demonstrated beyond my previous research for the master’s thesis that the little island of New Providence in the Bahamas had indeed played a pivotal role in the historical drama more commonly referred to as blockade-running. Nassau, the island capital of the Bahamas, became a significant supply center from which commodities vital to the survival of the Confederacy were shipped. My sincere thanks, therefore, go to Stephen Wise and Colin Brooker for unwittingly inspiring me to engage in this extended research initiative that hopefully will add value to Bahamian historiography.

In 2014, my wife, Ruth, stumbled upon a copy of my master’s thesis that had been tucked away with other research material among the assorted literature stacked in our library. She suggested that I engage in continued research and convert the thesis into a book. It was not until December 2015, during a visit to New England, however, while delayed in the Logan Airport in Boston, that I discussed the idea of the book with her again. As expected, her response was encouraging, and there in the airport, I began to draft an outline of the proposed manuscript. And so, work began on Perspectives on Nassau and Blockade-Running. I give Ruth her well-deserved kudos for constant support of my ongoing adventure into the realm of historical research. This book is dedicated to her.

I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to assist with the academic development of a promising young scholar and researcher in the person of Nameiko Hall-Miller. At the time of this writing, Nameiko was one of several emerging researchers engaged at the Antiquities, Monuments and Museum Corporation in Nassau. Her assigned task for this book was to assist with identifying and accessing new research materials from newspapers, colonial records, and journals. This was an arduous task that resulted in eyes strained from peering into microfilm materials, many of which were not always of the highest quality. Through it all, she demonstrated a consistent dedication to detail and a willingness to be guided. I am proud to acknowledge her significant contribution to this book.

I would be remiss not to mention the encouragement of the Right Honorable Perry Gladstone Christie, former prime minister of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, who often displayed a genuinely sincere passion for researching and preserving the history of the Bahamas and its people. He has, for many years, consistently encouraged Bahamians to record their history. One of his favorite statements is Until lions tell their own story, it will be that of the hunter which will be heard! It was through the auspices of his office that I was reengaged as the consultant director of the National Museum of the Bahamas / Antiquities, Monuments and Museum Corporation and provided with the resources to develop and subsequently engage a team of researchers to investigate and publish aspects of Bahamian history. This book is a fulfillment of one of his many dreams that focused on the continued research into the heritage of this nation of islands we both passionately love.

Once again, I give kudos to my son, LeTaj, a young architect and planner now residing in Pittsburg but who has always come to my rescue in designing idyllic designs for the cover of my books. His interpretation for and appreciation of my research are aptly demonstrated in the historically accurate designs, which in themselves illustrate the subject focus of my research. I share the honor of producing this work with him for his dedication and commitment to assisting me in my devotion to preserve the history of the islands of our birth for posterity. Thanks, Taj. Your consistent assistance to me, even when you are busy with your own professional and domestic obligations, is greatly valued and highly treasured. Your graphic contribution will endure with the life of this and all the other books you have assisted me with.

Finally, and with all due respect, I acknowledge the grace of the Almighty for mercifully providing me with the health, skills, and resolve to engage in and complete this work. This divine guidance is especially appreciated in the all-too-frequent times of writer’s block when I am genuinely at a loss for words to intellectually express the research material as succinctly and reader-friendly as possible. In faith, I would lift my eyes to the hills, and the apparent positive results are contained within the pages of this work.

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Commonwealth of the Bahamas

New Providence and Nassau

Union versus Confederate States in 1861

Union Blockade

Attack on Fort Sumter

Abraham Lincoln

Emancipation Proclamation

Robert E. Lee

Blockade Proclamation

Royal Victoria Hotel

Blockade-Runners in Nassau Harbor

TABLES

1. Nassau population based on the Blue Book Reports for the years 1860–65, 1870

2. Nassau imports and exports based on the Blue Book Reports for the years 1860–65, 1870. All figures are stated in pounds, shillings, pence, and sterling.

3. Export figures for 1860–65, 1870, based on the Blue Book Reports for those years.

4. Nassau cotton imports and exports based on the Blue Book Reports for the years 1860–65, 1870. Included are the shipping statistics for this period.

5. Crime cases based on the Blue Book Reports for the years 1860–65, 1870. All figures are stated in pounds, shillings, pence, and sterling.

6. Wage scales based on the Blue Book Reports for the years 1860–65, 1870. All figures used are stated in pounds, shillings, pence, and sterling.

7. Prices of foods based on the Blue Book Reports for the years 1860–65, 1870. Prices given are in pounds, shillings, pence, and sterling.

PRELUDE TO THE BLOCKADE

The 1860s were years of unprecedented civil, social, and commercial turmoil for the United States of America. The still-young United States of America, the enviable union of states built on the progressive principles of equality of all men, freedom of speech and religion, and government for the people and by the people, was ironically plunged into what eventually evolved into a protracted civil conflict. The conflict lasted for four years and became a devastating civil war that not only divided but also threatened to destroy the once highly admired fabric of democracy, which undergirded the Union. In effect, the delicately woven cosmopolitan tapestry of American society from north to south teetered on the precipice of apparent irrevocable unravel.

Conversely, the conflict provided commercial opportunity for many Bahamians. Prosperity was widely demonstrated by the increase in economic hustle and bustle that injected instant commercial convalescence into the otherwise impoverished islands of the Bahamas. Generally just a sleepy backwater Anglo-colonial outpost, the islands benefited from the political chaos engulfing their embattled neighbors to the north through tacit support for the rebellious Confederate cause. The lucrative activities in the islands were also supported by the often not very subtle complicity of British colonial and commercial interests, which encouraged use of the port of Nassau as a major trade conduit for the supply of critically needed commodities to the Confederacy in return for cargoes of highly prized cotton and grain required to keep the factories of the industrial European Continent fully engaged.

The rumblings of internal conflict between the states were underscored by rumors of impending economic recession. In late 1857, the fragile state of the Union was strained when it was confronted by an economic panic like the one that rattled the economic state of the Union two decades before. In 1837, the economies of Great Britain and the United States were impacted by an interconnected global recession. Unemployment and prices skyrocketed, while wages and profits plummeted. Causes for the recession included unsecured and speculative lending practices in western states, sharp declines in the price of cotton, a collapsed land market, and restrictive economic policies enforced by Great Britain, America’s primary trade partner. In May 1837, New York banks suspended specie payments and refused to redeem commercial paper at full face value. Many banks and businesses in the United States failed, and thousands of workers were left unemployed; bills could not be paid. Many families were left in the grip of economic depression.

The financial panic of 1857 was fueled by declines in the global economy and fear of a recurrence of another economic recession like the one that rocked the Union two decades before. To complicate matters even further, the British government circumvented the stipulations of the Peel Banking Act of 1844, which required adequate gold and silver reserves to support money in circulation. News of this circumvention sparked rumors of economic recession, and a subsequent panic reverberated across the Atlantic. In 1857, a ship transporting a shipment of gold that American banks desperately depended on to remain financially solvent, sank, a tragic event from which many American banks did not immediately recover until after the conflict between the states ended almost a decade later.

In July 1857, in the wake of the economic panic, the N. H. Wolfe and Company, the oldest flour and grain marketing company in New York City, collapsed. Grain prices had fallen from $2.19 in 1855 to $0.80 in 1857. Investor confidence in the grain industry was shaken, and many began to divest their interests for fear of suffering continued losses if the slump in the grain market remained. In August of that year, the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company announced the suspension of payments for liabilities. The New York Daily Times reported: New York City and Cincinnati branches were suspended with liabilities it is said, of $7,000,000.⁶ As grain prices fell and demand for that commodity decreased, the railroads, which were heavily financed by regional banks, suffered a slowdown in business and faced an inability to service outstanding debts.

Ironically, in the domino-like economic fallout, the vastly agrarian Southern states suffered little from the economic depression. Profits from grain were systematically covered by the expanded cultivation of cotton. The situation in the industrial North, on the other hand, was adversely impacted. In 1859, the American economy began to show signs of rebound, and markets became more stable. Perhaps the fervent efforts of the Northern states to collaborate with the Southern states in addressing the economic recession may have given Southerners a false impression that the Yankees would be amenable to the Southern commitment to preserving the peculiar institution of slavery.⁷ However, the impending crisis the presidential elections were to precipitate proved this to be a costly error in judgement.

The United States presidential election of 1860 was a defining moment in American history. The deep, almost irreparable division in the ranks of the once powerful Democratic Party paved