The Confederate Mystery Ship and the Dangerous World of Civil War Blockade Runners

On this episode of Our American Stories, The Confederacy entered the Civil War with a serious problem. It didn’t have the industrial strength to build the navy it needed. To keep the war effort alive, Southern leaders turned to something they still had plenty of: cash crops and international trade.

That’s where blockade runners came in. Fast ships slipped through the Union blockade carrying cotton out and weapons and supplies back in. Some of those vessels became legends of Civil War naval history. Others disappeared almost as quickly as they appeared. John Freeman of the South Carolina Military Museum shares the story of a mystery 'blockade runner' and how it met its demise.

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