The Confederate privateers were privately owned ships that were authorized by the government of the Confederate States of America to attack the shipping of the United States. Although the appeal was to profit by capturing merchant vessels and seizing their cargoes, the government was most interested in diverting the efforts of the Union Navy away from the blockade of Southern ports, and perhaps to encourage European intervention in the conflict.
At the beginning of the American Civil War, the Confederate government sought to counter the United States Navy in part by appealing to private enterprise worldwide to engage in privateering against United States shipping. Navy Official Records, Series 1, volume 3, page 97. Privateering was the practice of fitting ordinary private merchant vessels with modest armament, then sending them to sea to capture other merchant vessels in return for monetary reward. The captured vessels and cargo fell under customary prize rules at sea. Prizes would be taken to the jurisdiction of a competent court, which could be in the sponsoring country or theoretically in any neutral port. If the court found that the capture was legal, the ship and cargo would be forfeited and sold at a prize auction. The proceeds would be distributed among owners and crew according to a contractual arrangement. Privateers were also authorized to attack an enemy's navy warships and then apply to the sponsoring government for direct monetary reward, usually gold or gold specie (coins).
In the early days of the war, enthusiasm for The Confederacy was high, and many ship owners responded to the appeal by applying for letters of marque. Not all of those who gained authorization actually went to sea, but the numbers of privateers were high enough to be a major concern for US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Many ships of the Union Navy were diverted from blockade duty in efforts to capture privateers. Most of the privateers managed to remain free, but enough were caught that the owners and crew had to consider the risk seriously. The capture of the privateers Savannah and Jefferson Davis resulted in important court cases that did much to define the nature of the Civil War itself.
Initial enthusiasm could not be sustained. The initial prospects for profit were dealt a crippling blow after neutral states quickly closed their ports to all privateers, who found it difficult to deliver their captures to Confederate ports against an increasingly effective Union blockade. As a result the expected profits were never realized. By the end of the first year of the war, the risks far exceeded the benefits in the minds of most owners and crews. The practice continued only sporadically through the rest of the war as the Confederate government turned its efforts against Northern commerce over to commissioned Confederate Navy commerce raiders such as the CSS Alabama and CSS Florida.
The Civil War was the last time a belligerent power seriously resorted to privateering.The United States authorized a privately owned airship, Resolute, for submarine spotting in late 1941 and early 1942. The practice had already been outlawed among European countries by the Declaration of Paris (1856). Following the Civil War, the United States agreed to abide by the Declaration of Paris. More important than any international agreements, however, was the recognition by ship owners that the increased cost and sophistication of maritime vessels and naval weaponry had effectively eliminated any reasonable prospects for profit for private enterprise naval warfare.
Call for privateers Following the 12 April 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, President Abraham Lincoln called for raising 75,000 volunteers from state militia to put down the "rebellion". In response, on the 17th of April, Confederate President Jefferson Davis called both for raising troops and for the issuance of letters of marque.Tucker, Blue and Gray Navies, pp. 72–73.
Although the Federal government had only 42 warships in commission, and many of the best were laid up as unserviceable or distributed widely around the world, the Confederate States had almost nothing to offer in opposition. With no navy yet established, they turned to the alternative of privateering. The word "privateer" applies to any private citizen in the world who raises a ship and crew to engage in the destruction of enemy shipping for profit. Although specifically allowing attacks upon enemy warships, privateers are typically amateurs employed against commercial shipping because armed navy ships are more likely to fight back effectively. Privateering is authorized by the issuance of "letters of marque and reprisal" by a sponsoring government. It was explicitly allowed by the Confederate ConstitutionArticle 1, Section 8.11. the words of which were copied almost directly from the American Constitution. With a mission to prey upon commercial vessels of the enemy, their pay would consist of the value of seized ships and cargoes, also known as prizes, less legal costs.Luraghi, History of the Confederate Navy, p. 71. Two benefits would accrue to the Confederate government; the disruption of commerce might persuade the European nations to pressure the North to end the conflict, and it would also force the North on its own to ease the expected blockade in order to chase down the privateers.In the opening days of the hostilities following the firing upon Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the "rebellion," on April 17, 1861 Jefferson Davis made an official proclamation calling for privateers to attack Northern Shipping. Wasting no time, Lincoln proclaimed a blockade on April 19, 1861, not as a full war plan as later endorsed and broadened by Winfield Scott's "Anaconda Plan", but as a counter-measure against Davis's privateers. Having no plans or war strategies in only two days after Fort Sumter and one day after Davis's proclamation, Lincoln used Davis's Privateering Act as the primary justification for the blockade at the time it was announced, although he insisted upon referring to Confederate privateers as "pirates.". See ORN I, v. 4, pp. 156–157, 340. When the war began, "legitimate" privateers could legally clear prizes in neutral ports, which were literally worldwide. Therefore, privateers were a credible threat to the national security of the United States, whereas if the Confederate States could tie up the Union Navy in the protection of Northern shipping, any blockade, which was expected but not yet declared, would be at least mitigated and the Southern Confederacy would be seen as a new world power to be respected.
Prior to the hostilities between the North and South, the majority of European maritime powers had declared the practice of privateering to be illegal by the Declaration of Paris (1856). According to the treaty, privateers of signatory nations were strictly illegal and if caught they could be seized by the ships of any other signatory nation and tried in that nation's courts. However, they were not exactly the same as pirates. Privateers enjoyed limited legal status if they did not murder and if they behaved generally according to the laws of their sponsoring non-signatory government. Thus acting, they were not subject to the death penalty as if they were rogue buccaneers. True piracy was a crime everywhere and the death penalty for piracy was accepted worldwide. In 1856, the United States had declined to ratify the Declaration, or Treaty, of Paris in order to preserve the rights of a smaller fledgling nation against the larger maritime powers of the day. Now Lincoln wanted exactly the same protection against privateers as the European powers did in 1856, which the United States had denied. As a non-signatory of the Treaty, Lincoln could have legally raised a call for privateers himself, but he had much to lose by engaging in the practice because it could have stirred the wrath of the greatest maritime powers on earth, Great Britain, France and Spain, whom he wished instead would join in condemnation of the Confederacy as an illegal government. The Confederate States had little to lose and much to gain if they could neutralize the United States Navy and force the world to see them as a respectable world power. Surely, they believed, recognition of Southern sovereignty would follow.
When the Civil War broke out it was clearly in the interest of the Lincoln government to suppress privateering and Lincoln tried belatedly to make the United States a signatory of the Treaty which was denied by the Europeans.Luraghi, History of the Confederate Navy, p. 73. However, if Lincoln wanted any respect or cooperation by the British (other nations would generally follow British policy) he would have to observe all the rules of the Treaty and not resort to privateering himself. The British government, which was the primary sponsor of the Treaty of Paris, made clear that it would not tolerate the death penalty for privateering. This was especially because at the time it was common practice for citizens of neutral nations to serve both on privateers and in national navies. London therefore had reason to fear the prospect of British subjects aboard Southern privateers facing prosecution in American courts on trumped-up charges of piracy.
If the previous signatories had accepted American entry into the scope of the treaty, it would have meant that they were taking sides in the rebellion. Rather than do so, they insisted that the United States should get its own house in order first. The governments of the treaty participants, perhaps in following Britain's lead, proclaimed their neutrality and accepted the blockade without recognizing the sovereignty of the Davis government except as a de facto belligerent, the same as the United States, while continuing to recognize the Lincoln government as the legal American government.No Need for Glory, Regis Courtemanche, p. 18-19 Nevertheless, the status of "belligerent" gave the seceding states invaluable practical rights almost equal to being recognized as a nation. Recognized belligerents had certain rights such as securing foreign loans, purchasing foreign arms and the use of neutral ports as harbors of refuge and repair for warships. By an odd twist in the 1856 treaty, the privateers of a belligerent power who had not signed the treaty also had the right to clear their prizes in neutral ports. Great Britain, followed by other signatory nations, quickly revoked that right on May 13, 1861, with a Proclamation by Queen Victoria declaring neutral ports across the Empire to be off limits to prize clearing. British neutrality was taken initially by Lincoln to be openly hostile to the United States because of the implied recognition, however, Lincoln was actually handed a triumph to his own foreign policy. The modified British policy actually worked to the advantage of the Federal government because it meant that British, French, and Spanish prize courts, including those in colonies in the Caribbean, were closed to privateers. They would therefore, in order to make good their prizes, have to take them into Confederate seaports for adjudication.Luraghi, History of the Confederate Navy, pp. 73–74. Lincoln was suddenly spared of having to spread his Navy beyond impossible limits and he could concentrate on the blockade.