One new occupation came into being. While Semmes of Mobile, in the privateers Sumter and Alabama, and Maffitt in the Florida, were destroying all Northern commerce which they could find on the ocean, the Federal navy was blockading Southern ports. This was designed to prevent supplies from getting in and cotton from getting out to Europe, and thus doubly to cripple the South. Blockade-running by swift Confederate vessels became common and often successful. The destination of the runners was generally the neutral port of Nassau, in British West Indies. Among these grayish-white vessels were the Alice, Denbigh, and Red Gauntlet. They carried, according to the size, from six hundred to twelve hundred bales of cotton, and brought back miscellaneous cargoes, in which drugs and war stores usually figured. Many of them were captured, and there was no insurance; but others made a dozen or more successful trips. The Heroine, now used as a bay boat, was one of the small blockade-runners. A Mobile Presbyterian minister took his wedding trip on the Swan, bound for Nassau, but was captured with his bride and taken North.
Fort Morgan, under General Page, was well
