Dana Vacca's Blog: Freedom Calling A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea - Posts Tagged "plantation"
Cotton & Tobacco and the Union Blockade
BOOK: Freedom Calling: A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea by Dana Vacca
BOOK HIGHLIGHTS
The Pettigrew Plantation, like Shamrock Valley, had large, airy barns to store tobacco and cotton bales that were ready for shipment north. The hogshead barrels of tobacco and the bales of cotton would be loaded onto buckboard wagons, driven to the harbor and unloaded onto waiting sailing ships.
During the Civil War the Union blockade halted all Confederate trade at all ports in the South, and the loss of income was bankrupting the landed gentry. Plantation owners plotted risky, clandestine, late-night schemes to secretively transport their season's harvest on fast, discreet packet steamers that could sometimes manage to slip out of the harbor unnoticed. Because of the risk of confiscation and arrest, though, the price offered for their produce was low, and the cost of shipping, high. Even when all went well, there was little, if any, profit to be made.
Book Excerpt -
"Friday night, just before sunset, we slipped quietly away from the plantation and hurried through the forest of tall oaks in the direction of the Pettigrew plantation. We neared the edge of the small pasture that led to the farmyard. Silhouetted against the purple sky were Mr. Pettigrew's large storage barns. A thin horse stood patiently in front of the cavernous doorway of the first storehouse while a few men loaded burlap-shrouded bales of cotton onto the wagon that was hitched behind the horse. Around the far side, at the rear of the building, two more horse-and-wagon teams stood tied and unattended. These wagons were already loaded, one piled high with the big blocks of tightly bound cotton and the other with oaken barrels. Even from a distance we caught the heavy sweet scent of the cured tobacco coming from the kegs."
LINK TO PHOTO ON FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarHist...
Freedom Calling: A Civil War Slave Escapes by Sea
:
BOOK HIGHLIGHTS
The Pettigrew Plantation, like Shamrock Valley, had large, airy barns to store tobacco and cotton bales that were ready for shipment north. The hogshead barrels of tobacco and the bales of cotton would be loaded onto buckboard wagons, driven to the harbor and unloaded onto waiting sailing ships.
During the Civil War the Union blockade halted all Confederate trade at all ports in the South, and the loss of income was bankrupting the landed gentry. Plantation owners plotted risky, clandestine, late-night schemes to secretively transport their season's harvest on fast, discreet packet steamers that could sometimes manage to slip out of the harbor unnoticed. Because of the risk of confiscation and arrest, though, the price offered for their produce was low, and the cost of shipping, high. Even when all went well, there was little, if any, profit to be made.
Book Excerpt -
"Friday night, just before sunset, we slipped quietly away from the plantation and hurried through the forest of tall oaks in the direction of the Pettigrew plantation. We neared the edge of the small pasture that led to the farmyard. Silhouetted against the purple sky were Mr. Pettigrew's large storage barns. A thin horse stood patiently in front of the cavernous doorway of the first storehouse while a few men loaded burlap-shrouded bales of cotton onto the wagon that was hitched behind the horse. Around the far side, at the rear of the building, two more horse-and-wagon teams stood tied and unattended. These wagons were already loaded, one piled high with the big blocks of tightly bound cotton and the other with oaken barrels. Even from a distance we caught the heavy sweet scent of the cured tobacco coming from the kegs."
LINK TO PHOTO ON FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarHist...
Freedom Calling: A Civil War Slave Escapes by Sea
:
Civil War Era NEW BEDFORD WHALING SHIP - The Lady Grey
FREEDOM CALLING: A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea
Book by Dana Vacca
BOOK HIGHLIGHTS - Lady Grey (Ship)
The beautiful sailing barque, Lady Grey, underway with nearly full sail, her hull cuts gracefully through the water toward New Bedford.
Like many whaling and merchant ships of her day, she had "painted on" gun ports (only two were real), so that, from a distance, she had the look of a "ship of the line" and would be thought to be carrying a row of cannon along her larboard and starboard sides. However, this did not insure safety as a privateer captain worth his salt had every ship he had ever seen etched into his memory,... by the line of her hull, the configuration of her masts and sails, - and most often knew which battlements were feigned and which were real!
See pics on my FACEBOOK BLOG: https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarHist...
Freedom Calling: A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea
Book by Dana Vacca
BOOK HIGHLIGHTS - Lady Grey (Ship)
The beautiful sailing barque, Lady Grey, underway with nearly full sail, her hull cuts gracefully through the water toward New Bedford.
Like many whaling and merchant ships of her day, she had "painted on" gun ports (only two were real), so that, from a distance, she had the look of a "ship of the line" and would be thought to be carrying a row of cannon along her larboard and starboard sides. However, this did not insure safety as a privateer captain worth his salt had every ship he had ever seen etched into his memory,... by the line of her hull, the configuration of her masts and sails, - and most often knew which battlements were feigned and which were real!
See pics on my FACEBOOK BLOG: https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarHist...
Freedom Calling: A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea
Freedom Calling A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea
FREEDOM CALLING is a page-turner packed with action, emotion, romance and adventure - vibrantly painted with powerful characters, vivid imagery and factual details of the Civil War era.
Runaway slaves ...more
Runaway slaves ...more
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