14 15 16 28 29 30 17 18 19 31 32 33 20 21 22 23 34 35 36 24 25 26 27 37 38 39 Darryl Dewberry, ASPA Board Member Nelson Sanchez, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Zemmie Murray, Richard Murray & Co. Jeremy Headley, Parker Towing Edith Louden, Geotechnical Engineering Alvin Hope, ASPA Board Member 14 Angus Cooper, III, Cooper/T. Smith 18 Jimmy Lyons, ASPA Director & CEO 23 John Williams, Mobile City Council 28 George Nelson, Parker Towing 33 Testing Inc. 37 Rep. James Buskey, Alabama House of Joe McCarty, ASPA Board Member Bubba Poiroux, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Clint Carpenter, Standard Furniture Curt Doyle, Geotechnical Engineering Representatives Janet Fordham Testing Inc. Donald Bell, Mobile Housing Board 24 15 Jeff Mynatt, Seacliff Agency Andrew Filliater Al Fordham, Leaf River Cellulose LLC 29 Ray Jones, Tradelanes J.T. Smith, Glovis USA Bob Harris, ASPA 19 Tom Adger, Tri-State Maritime Anna Ward, ASPA Todd Jones, ASPA 38 Monica Bertolino Nelson Sanchez, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Kevin Filliater, Norton Lilly Logistics Bill Inge, ASPA Ritchie Macpherson, Seacliff Agency John Norton, Paul A. Boulo Bubba Poiroux, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Michelle Turner, Inchcape Shipping Services 34 Andres Aviles, Southern Intermodal Xpress Larry Torbert, Omni Maritime David Barr, ASPA Kenny Hirsch, CSA 30 Ramona Merritt, Canfor Tim Otzenberger, Lenzing Fibers Suzanne Torbert, Omni Maritime 20 25 16 Johnny Murray, Cooper/T. Smith Dana Haymaker, APM Terminals Julie Withers Tom Leatherbury, CSA Christopher Watkins, Point Logistics Pharr Hume, Willis of Alabama Mike Russell, TASD Joe Withers, Biehl & Co. Josie Mock, Inchcape Shipping Services 39 Denson White, APM Terminals Mark Moran, Drummond Coal Tracy Mock, Atlas Ship Supply 35 Judy Adams, ASPA Jeff Uhl, Miller Transporters Inc. Jennifer Moran Rashard Howard, CSX Matt Sparks, SSA Gulf Larry Wettermark, Galloway, Wettermark, Brad Binning, Miller Transporters Inc. 21 26 Laura Huckabee Derrick Turner, Alabama Career Center Doug French, AST 31 Zemmie Murray, Richard Murray & Co. Everest, Rutens LLC Steven Tapscott, Miller Transporters Inc. Terah Huckabee, Parker Towing Johnny Murray, Cooper/T. Smith Beth Marietta Lyons, The Lyons Firm Larry Downs, ASPA Polly Wilkins, ASPA Alvin Hope, ASPA Board Member Nancy Wettermark George Talbot, City of Mobile 22 Linda Downs 27 Austin St. Clair, APM Terminals Parrish Lawler, ASPA 17 Fred Rendfrey, Downtown Mobile Alliance Bob Galloway Maria Moller, APM Terminals 36 Debbie Simpson, AkzoNobel Leigh Rendfrey, JJPR Bruner Binion, Regions Bank 32 David Vella, Richard Murray & Co. Mike Lee, Page & Jones Bestor Ward, III, ASPA Board Member Ralph Amos, Southern Intermodal Xpress Ann McCool, Arcelor Mittal Marcia Amos Martin Cunningham, N.D. Cunningham 8 ALABAMA SEAPORT • 2017 VOL. I ALABAMA SEAPORT • 2017 VOL. I 9 or steaming from Havana. Nassau may have been the busiest of the way points for blockade-runners, but at least one of the men who sailed from several of the island jumping off points deemed Havana as the nicest. Thomas E. Taylor, British supercargo in a number of blockade- runners, reported that the Cuban city was then in its heyday and the most beautiful city in the West Indies. It was also costly, a result of the huge profits being made on illegal shipments. “… I should think that at the time [Havana] was one of the most if not the most expensive city in the world to live in,” Taylor wrote, adding, “Havana RUNNING THE BLOCKADE AT MOBILE appeared like Paradise; good hotels and casinos, a capital theatre, magnificent equipages, military bands, handsome women…” One of the favorite locales in Havana was the Louvre, a large café considered neutral territory where Yankees, Southerners, U.S. Navy personnel and blockade-runners could gather and talk over coffee. While specially built, low-slung steamers were favored for East Coast runs, most Gulf Coast blockaders » Cotton on the wharves at Mobile, Ala. The South depended preferred shallow draft centerboard schooners that on exporting cotton in return not only for arms and could elude pursuing blockaders by slipping over sand ammunition but daily essentials and luxury items. bars and into bays and inlets where the warships could not follow. Situated at the head of Mobile Bay, the port’s Confederate schooners in the Gulf, as well as the Mexican upper anchorage was only dredged to a depth of 12 schooner BRILLIANT, laden with a cargo of flour. feet. The lower anchorage, where most commercial ships gathered, could accommodate ships with drafts of By the end of July, the Navy had organized three between 18 to 20 feet. This anchorage lay only five miles commands to blockade Southern ports: the North north of Mobile Point, main entrance to the bay. The ship Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the South Atlantic channel measured only a half mile wide at its narrowest Blockading Squadron and the Gulf Blockading Squadron point, with the northern end of the channel protected (which would be divided into the West Gulf and East Gulf by the guns of Ft. Morgan on the Eastern Shore and the squadrons in January 1862). more distant Ft. Gaines on Dauphin Island. Because the forts were some five miles from the mouth of the bay, a The potential impact of a blockade was readily apparent. smaller blockading force typically was assigned to guard If it were going to be placed on a successful war footing, the approach to the city. Early in the course of the war, a the Confederacy required arms and other and war single ship was assigned blockade duty off Mobile, which materiél—and its citizens still demanded luxury items— ship could be found patrolling some eight or 10 miles just as the industrialized England depended on the South from the bar. » A long-established trade port with Mobile, Havana served as the primary way point for blockade-runners calling on ports on the for cotton and other raw materials. Few things motivate Gulf of Mexico. as strongly as profit, and the lure of large returns on As blockade-runners typically were not armed, they investment resulted in a blockade-running business had to rely on stealth, speed or shallow draft to escape almost immediately. Fortunes could be made almost capture. If blockaders could get within firing distance istorians argue over the implications of President So, despite the April announcement, it was a good six overnight by successful blockade-runners. Blockade of their guns, they often were able to take their prizes Abraham Lincoln’s announcement on April 19, weeks before any semblance of blockade came into running consortiums paid 500 to 1,000 percent without incident, as when the USS WATER WITCH H1861, of a blockade of Southern ports by U.S. Navy being, with one or two ships beginning to take up station dividends. Salt that sold for $7.50 per ton in Nassau captured the British blockade-runner CORNUCOPIA warships. A blockade, some historians insist, can only be off the major Southern ports from Virginia to Louisiana. commanded $1,700 per ton in Richmond, while coffee off Mobile on Nov. 13. Two months later, the USS R.R. enforced against the ports of an enemy nation; while a Ships’ captains provided notices of varying formality that sold for $240 a ton in Nassau could fetch $5,500 CUYLER was not as fortunate. Patrolling the eastern nation itself merely closes its own ports during a time to the ports and began warning off neutral ships as a ton in the Confederate capital. Three way points for approaches to Mobile, the CUYLER sighted a blockade- of emergency, the implication being that President they approached. It was not until May 26 that Lt. David blockade-runners were quickly established: Nassau runner, the schooner J.W. WILDER, at anchor some 15 Lincoln, whether knowingly or unwittingly, recognized Dixon Porter, commanding officer of USS POWHATAN, and Bermuda for East Coast ports, and Havana for Gulf miles east of the bay. As the CUYLER approached, the the Confederacy as a separate nation by declaring a informed Mobile that a blockade of the so-called “Gem of ports (Matamoras, Mexico, gained importance later as a WILDER got underway and made for the shore, where blockade. Whatever the case, U.S. Navy historian James the Gulf” was then in effect, even though that same ship launching point for blockade-runners). Cotton that sold her crew beached and abandoned her. The CUYLER R. Soley points out that a blockade by notification is had stopped suspect vessels near Pensacola as early as for eight cents a pound in Wilmington sold for 50 cents a could not approach in the shallow water, but Lt. Francis not a blockade de facto. Fifty-three percent of the May 7 and blockading forces captured the Confederate p o un d in Live rp o ol . Th e p rofit s we re s tagg e ring . C o m m o n Winslow anchored and dispatched a boat to capture the ships listed in the Naval Register of 1861 were unfit for vessels DICK KEYES and LEWIS off Mobile on the same sailors in the blockade-runners earned as much as $250 grounded blockade-runner. The crew of the blockade- service or marked for decommissioning. Of the Navy’s 42 date. New Orleans and Pensacola were the other Gulf per round trip (compared to the $18 per month paid to runner began firing on the boat from the dunes, and men operational ships, more than half were obsolete. Twenty- ports initially included in the blockade. Galveston was U.S. and Confederate sailors in government service). aboard the CUYLER fired back, eventually lobbing a few eight ships were abroad, and all five of the service’s added later.