ailing ships involved in the trade and the success rate was 91 percent for steamers and 81 percent for sailing ships.[56] The blockade of Georgia and East Florida, although more effective, was insignificant. Due to their dearth of railroad facilities and major ports, Confederates and speculators never attempted much blockade-running there. Only 225 total vessels ever participated in blockade-running and only 35 of those were steamers.[57] Blockade-running numbers plummeted when the only important port, Savannah, was virtually shut off by capture of nearby Port Royal, South Carolina, by Union forces on April 10, 1862. They used it as the base for the blockade fleet. Savannah was thus effectively blockaded for the remainder of the war. Adding up all Marcus Price's figures, a total of 6,316 attempts were made to violate the blockade, and 5,389 or 85 percent succeeded. The steamers succeeded 2,525 times, a 92 percent success rate, and 2,864 or 80 percent of the 3,573 attempts by sailing vessels succeeded. However, these figures are somewhat inflated because they include Price's figures for Georgia and East Florida, which account for nearly one thousand runs by several small regular packet steamers involved in coastal trade. Other authorities have argued even higher figures, including estimates of small sailing ships and "phantom craft" which did their business in secret and were never put on port records. In his book King Cotton Diplomacy, Frank Owsley estimates a total of about 8,250 violations and concludes that the blockade was strictly a paper blockade, and it was "a leaky and ramshackle affair."[58] Daniel O'Flaherty, author of the article "The Blockade that Failed," estimates about 8,000 round trips by 1,650 vessels.[59] These figures are just guesses, but it is important to note that since Price's statistics are compilations of records, he did not include in his estimate ships that didn't officially enter and clear ports. Another his...
