Shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, in April 1861, President Lincoln issued proclamations establishing blockades of Southern ports in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

The purpose of the blockade was to cut off supplies to the Confederacy, principally from Great Britain, and curtail the export of cotton to finance the war. The seceding Southern states had little in the way of manufacturing to produce consumer goods or munitions and other items to maintain an army and wage war. England had the industrial capability to produce what the South needed, and the South had the cotton sorely needed for British textile mills.

When Lincoln established the blockade, he had little in hand to back up the decree. With more than 3,000 miles of coast from Texas to Virginia, the North had only about 35 modern vessels capable of enforcing the blockade. The Southern states were in worse shape. The Confederate Navy had virtually no ships, and only one shipyard, Norfolk, Virginia, was capable of building vessels of any size. All ships under construction at Norfolk at that time were destroyed by Union forces except for the Merrimac, which burned to the waterline but was salvaged and rebuilt later. However, the Confederacy seized a number of ships of various sorts in Southern ports and outfitted them mostly as privateers and gunboats to prey on Union commerce and harass Union ships and shore facilities.

Although the federal government called the Civil War an insurrection or rebellion rather than a war, a blockade was internationally considered an act of war. The blockade, coupled with the Confederacy's distinct geographical area and organized government, gave basis for Queen Victoria of England to issue a proclamation of neutrality concerning the hostilities between the Government of the United States and the Confederate States of America. Britain's neutrality was cheered by the South because it gave recognition to the Confederacy as a legitimate government.

The Union began building ships as rapidly as possible to enforce the blockade. The South, without effective shipyards and the means to equip and armor ships, had representatives in England contracting for the construction of warships and promoting merchant ship trade between England and the Confederacy. Although officially neutral, the British government tended to look the other way, partly because they were in sympathy with the Confederacy and partly because England sorely needed cotton. Export of cotton from the South to England in the first two years of the war dropped from 816 million pounds to 6 million pounds. As a result, textile mills had closed and two million people were out of work and starving.

Because of the blockade, Union ships were allowed to board merchant ships bound for the South and seize the vessels and their cargo as prizes. However, if the ships were en route to a neutral destination, they could not be seized. Consequently British ships began heading for Nassau, Bermuda and Havana. From there, they sailed to Charleston, Savannah and Wilmington, only three days and five or six hundred miles away, at much less risk of exposure to Union warships.

Another advantage of going to ports like Nassau was that cargo could arrive in large, deep-draft freighters from England and then be transferred to the small, fast, shallow draft, dark-colored, low-profile boats known as "blockade runners." Piloted by experts and departing the Bahamas only at night, the blockade runners could elude the Union ships, which had to remain well offshore in deeper water.

During the early stages of the war, Union forces concentrated their blockading efforts on the larger ports of Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans. Wilmington, the largest city in North Carolina at the time with about 10,000 residents, flourished as a result of the highly successful efforts of the blockade runners. With good rail service into Virginia, and General Lee's forces, Wilmington was instrumental in keeping the Confederacy operating.

Wilmington turned out to be a very difficult port for the federal ships to blockade. The city is about 25 miles up the Cape Fear River from the Atlantic Ocean, and access to the river is tricky, hence the Cape Fear name. Even though the Union vessels eventually numbered about 40, they were unable to intercept most of the sleek, dark blockade runners slipping through the treacherous waters on very dark nights without lights.

Federal ships attempting to enforce the blockade at Wilmington had to contend with several obstacles. The two entrances to the river were through shallow channels widely separated by Smith's Island and Frying Pan Shoals extending for miles into the ocean. Consequently, the Union had to maintain two blockades, and it took several hours going around the shallow shoals to get from one blockade to the other. Confederate signal stations on shore signaled to the incoming blockade runners which entrance was more lightly guarded.

As the war progressed, the blockades closed down all the Southern ports except Wilmington, which became the sole lifeline for supplies to the Confederacy. However, in January 1865, Fort Fisher fell to a major Union assault, and the city of Wilmington was captured and held. The supply line was cut, and the fate of the Confederacy was sealed.

Overall, the Wilmington blockade runners were highly successful, with three-fourths of them getting through during the course of the war. Only about 130 vessels were sunk, captured or wrecked.