Gray Raiders of the Sea

Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce. By Chester G. Hearn. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992. Pp. xv, 351).

With all the massive land battles involved in the American Civil War, many people often neglect the naval aspects of the conflict. Blockade actions, coastal amphibious campaigns, and commerce raiding all played a large role in the war as both North and South strove to carry the fight to the seas. The Confederacy possessed no navy at the start of the conflict and suffered from a lack of skilled shipbuilders, construction facilities, and basic materials to build a fleet. Obviously, the South could not match the Union Navy in size. As the United States Navy slowly formed a blockade around Southern ports, the Confederates started using commerce raiders to strike offensively at the North on the oceans. The South could only build and provision a few number of raiders, but these ships inflicted large losses on the Northern merchant fleet and generated hysteria far out of proportion to their numbers. The Union Navy already had its resources stretched in trying to blockade hundreds of miles of Southern coast and struggled to suppress the raiders’ activities. In Gray Raiders of the Sea, Chester Hearn provides an action-packed account of eight commerce raiders that tormented the United States government throughout the war. According to Hearn, these eight vessels distracted numerous ships from blockade duty and damaged the Northern merchant fleet so severely that it took decades for it to fully recover.

Hearn narrates the careers of the eight raiders from their outfitting as warships to the end of their service. Ships of this period straddled the era of the wooden sailing vessel and the iron steamship. A ship could be constructed of wood or, increasingly, iron and many had both sails and steam engines for propulsion and maneuvering. The Confederacy obtained the raiders by either converting civilian merchant vessels or building them clandestinely in British shipyards. Constrained by neutrality laws, Great Britain could not openly build, arm, and provision warships for a belligerent nation. Using sympathetic British officials, Confederate agents such as James Dunwoody Bulloch obscured the true ownership and purpose of the vessels under construction. For example, the raider CSS Florida started her career as the Operto which was ostensibly bound for a firm in Palermo. In reality, the Confederates had paid for her and Operto became the Florida as soon as she cleared the British shipyards. The famous raider CSS Alabama also entered Confederate service by this method.

An interesting part of Hearn’s book is his portrayal of the diplomatic war that raged around the raiders’ activities. In neutral ports around the world, Confederate ships sought recognition for their nation while Union ship commanders and diplomatic Consuls tried to portray them as pirates. According to neutrality laws, neutral nations could meet the basic needs of a combat vessel such as supplies, fuel, and repairs. American Consuls tried to persuade the authorities in various ports to deny such services to Confederate ships by claiming the actions went beyond basic supply needs and abetted the raider’s ability to wage war. In reality, some neutrals favored the Union while others favored the Confederacy so some ports aided the raiders while others spurned them. Great Britain, for example, initially sympathized with the Confederacy. The British resented Union merchant competition on the high seas and thought the splitting of the United States would benefit them. British officials ostensibly followed the neutrality laws but secretly stretched them by ignoring the true ownership of vessels in their shipyards and manipulating harbor rules to the advantage of Confederates. As the war progressed, the British decided that the South stood little chance of winning and started enforcing the neutrality laws in order to avoid enmity with a reunited and strong United States. They confiscated Confederate ships in their ports and shipyards and restricted their aid to the raiders.

Although small in number, the raiders severely damaged the Union merchant fleet. Prior to the war, the United States merchant fleet rivaled Britain’s in the carrying trade. Raiders such as Alabama sunk thousands of tons of shipping and caused insurance rates on vessels and cargoes to skyrocket. In addition to the actual ship losses, Northern owners transferred nearly 800,000 tons of shipping to foreign firms in order to protect them from Confederate raiders. It took decades for the American fleet to fully recover its place among the world’s merchant marine. Overall, Hearn has written an engaging narrative of the Confederate raiders that examines both the naval activities and diplomatic actions surrounding them. Although not as decisive as the war on land, the naval campaigns played a large role in determining the outcome of the American Civil War.

Johnny Spence Texas Christian University

Chester G. Hearn’s intriguing book, Gray Raiders of the Sea: How Eight confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce, reviews in detail the Confederate Navy’s commerce raiding operation. He shows how the evolution of the merchant trade and sea law allowed the commerce raiders to success impede the North’s established commerce trade. He argues that the commerce raiding, while a tactical success, proved a strategic failure, in that it did not succeed in breaking the North’s naval blockade, nor did it destroy trade between the North and the rest of the world.

Hearn makes an interesting choice regarding his organization of the work. Rather than embark on a chronological presentation, he has divided his book into individual histories of each commerce raider. While this may irritate some readers (especially when ships operated in the same region), it allows Hearn to present the history without jumping between the various ships and confusing the reader.

Hearn argues throughout the work that Great Britain assisted the Confederate effort largely in an attempt to weaken the American shipping fleet. Over the decade prior to the war, the American shipping fleet had taken over much of the trade around the world with better ships and cheaper rates. By supporting the Confederate commerce raiding, Great Britain effectively destroyed American shipping. While numerous ships were captured or burned, the indirect costs far exceeded these loses. American ships could no longer get cargoes, leaving the ships rotting in distant ports. Even if they did, insurance rates jumped so high that profits disappeared. Ships were sold off and cargoes went no neutral ships through neutral merchants.

One of the quirks of the era is that the evolving nature of admiralty law during the 19^th century prevented the South from receiving the financial rewards of commerce raiding. Where previously the prize ships could be taken to a neutral port and sell the cargo and the ship, now, most of them were burned. Moreover, the evolving maritime law prevented regular supply of precious coal, which severely limited the range of the raiders. While the CNS Alabama and the CNS Shenandoah made long cruises as part of their raids through the world’s oceans, they were limited to sails for much of the travel. Hearn argues that Great Britain stopped its assistance to the commerce raiders mainly because it realized that it needed the evolving maritime law to protect its own merchant fleet against the commerce raiding strategy in some future conflict.

Some of the commerce raiders were very effective, even when they possessed little to no offensive armament. The early raiders such as the CNS Sumter and CNS Nashville, as well as Lt. Charles W. Read’s various ships during his cruise, did not prove to be great ships or possess much, if any firepower. Instead, the unarmed merchant ships surrendered to ships with wooden Quaker guns.

Hearn does not consider any possible defensive strategies for the Union against the commerce raiders, but it does not appear that the Union did either. Instead, Union ships are presented wandering around, chasing the ships in their last reported positions, with their Consuls working to prohibit the commerce raiders from entering neutral ports. Minister Charles Francis Addams worked diligently to track British support of the raiders, which he used in regards to the Alabama claims. In spite of the considerable press which the commerce raiding received during the war, it failed to force the union to break its naval blockade. While the Union did send some ships to pursue the raiders, it never did so in great numbers, and never left the blockade.

Hearn argues that the Alabama engaged in its final battle because its captain saw it could no longer serve its purpose. The Union commerce had disappeared. The ship was in need of serious overhaul and supplies, especially munitions. Captain Semmes may have wanted to let the ship die an honorable death in battle and likely knew that the ship in its condition could not defeat its opponent. The Alabama’s defective munitions proved its demise, as unexploded balls and weak powder proved its death.

The cruise of the Shenandoah proves especially interesting, with its captain unwilling to believe the war is over, burning numerous ships even after being informed of the Confederate defeat. He then decides to take a final cruise from off the coast of Alaska all the way back to Liverpool, presenting Great Britain with an un-welcomed reminder of its role in the Confederate commerce raiding.