Confederate Privateer - The End of Privateering

The End of Privateering

With the examples of Petrel, Jefferson Davis, and Savannah before them, shipowners realized that privateering was no longer profitable, and the practice soon died out. Some privateers sailed during the remainder of the war, but none had even the qualified success of Jefferson Davis.

The reason for the demise was not purely economic. Privateering represented a decentralization of power that was inconsistent with both technology and the evolution of the modern state. It fell victim to changes: steam power and gunnery in ships, more rapid communications that enabled greater central control, and the increasing reluctance of governments everywhere to relinquish power. It was this last that doomed privateering, according to Robinson, the primary modern historian of the Confederate privateers; his opinion is echoed by Luraghi. The effort of the Confederate government turned from privateers to their regularly commissioned raiders, which had spectacularly more success in attacking the northern mercantile fleet.

Long before the war was over, privateering could be evaluated, and clearly it was of minor importance. Only a handful of vessels fell victim, and these were balanced by losses of the privateers themselves. Two attempts at privateering on the west coast, the J. M. Chapman Plot and that of the Salvador Pirates resulted in capture and trials for piracy.