ng ships of which there are no records, the possibility exists that blockade-running took place on a significantly larger scale than is apparent from the official harbor records of the major ports. Even when ships were guarding ports, their blockades were too lax and easily penetrable. In December of 1861, the British warship Desperate came to test for blockaders at Galveston by making its presence known with smoke. When nothing happened, its commander wrote, “Having seen no United States man-of-war here, I concluded that the port was not effectively blockaded, and it will be my duty to report the same to my superior officer.”[7] Still disappointed by the blockade of Galveston as late as May 1864, Gideon Welles wrote to Read Admiral Farragut that “It can not but be looked upon as a miserable business when six good steamers, professing to blockade a harbor, suffer four vessels to run out in one night.”[8] This sort of poor enforcement was by no means restricted to Galveston; it was characteristic of most blockade enforcement. In August of 1861, Charles Prioleau of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool (one of the largest blockade-running companies and also the Confederate fiscal agency in England) tested the Savannah blockade by sending a boat through. The boat went through with no interference or encounters with any blockaders and came back with a cargo full of cotton.[9] In addition to proving the blockade ineffective, this was an extremely profitable voyage and prompted the company to buy a fleet of blockade-runners, and it encouraged many other enterprising people to jump into such a lucrative business. Throughout 1861, Consul Mure at New Orleans also reported continuous foreign trade between Mobile and New Orleans and Havana, Cuba. In early 1862, he sent reports of ships like the Vanderbilt having easy rides back and forth, loaded with more than 90,000 pounds of powder, prompting other merchants to charter...
