So
enormous were the profits arising from the exchange of munitions of
war and medicines* (* Quinine sold in the South for one hundred
dollars (Confederate) the ounce. O.R. volume 25 part 2 page 79.) for
cotton and tobacco that English ship-owners embarked eagerly on a
lucrative if precarious traffic. Blockade-running became a recognised
business. Companies were organised which possessed large fleets of
swift steamers. The Bahamas and Bermuda became vast entrepots of
trade. English seamen were not to be deterred from a perilous
enterprise by fear of Northern broadsides or Northern prisons, and
despite the number and activity of the blockading squadrons the
cordon of cruisers and gunboats was constantly broken. Many vessels
were sunk, many captured, many wrecked on a treacherous coast, and
yet enormous quantities of supplies found their way to the arsenals
and magazines of Richmond and Atlanta. The railways, then, leading
from Wilmington and Charleston, the ports most accessible to the
blockade-runners, were almost essential to the existence of the
Confederacy. Soon after the battle of Fredericksburg, General D.H.
Hill was placed in command of the forces which protected them, and,
at the beginning of the New Year, Ransom's division* (* 3594 officers
and men.
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