An amazing story just popped up on the UK’s Daily Mail news site: The winds and pounding surf of last week’s Hurricane Isaac have revealed the almost intact hull of a 150-year-old Confederate smuggling vessel from the U.S. Civil War.

The citizens of Fort Meyer, Alabama already knew that the remnants of the historic armed blockade runner lay on one of their town’s beaches — recent years’ hurricanes Ivan and Ike exposed some of the hull already. However, last week’s Category 1 storm managed to uncover much more the wreck.

The Confederacy used blockade runners throughout the Civil War to slip through the naval cordon that was strangling trade in the southern states. The fast ships were tasked with speeding past Union patrol boats with goods and supplies. The South, which had little navy to speak of at the war’s outset, even revived the practice of privateering both to capture much needed materiel and to strike a retaliatory blow against the Yankees.

For more about the use of privateers in the Civil War, check out this entry from this very blog: Avast, Y’all!: Confederate Pirates of the Civil War.

_______________________________________

If you’d like to receive alerts about the latest articles and posts, click on the link in the upper right margin marked “FOLLOW THIS BLOG”. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.