USS SASSACUS vs. NUTFIELD

Blockade running was a complicated pursuit even for the most skilled of seamen.  European goods were shipped to staging points in Bermuda, the Bahamas, or the Caribbean.  Here, smaller, sleek, fast ships would load for the dash into Southern ports.  Runners would skirt Union blockaders as best they could, then run close inshore where their shallow draft proved an advantage.  Only the luckiest threaded the thin line between uncharted shoals and dogged blockaders.  The paddle-wheel steamer Wild Dayrell for example, ran aground the night of 31 January 1864 at New Topsail Inlet, North Carolina, where she was discovered the following day by LCDR Francis A. Roe in USS SASSACUS.  Roe worked in vain until the 3^rd trying to free the steamer but ultimately had to burn her.

By 0700 this day SASSACUS had returned to her station on the Bermuda Line when she sighted another suspicious vessel about 12 miles to the northwest.  Roe fired his boilers and set his 205-foot, double-ender sidewheel gunboat in hot pursuit.  Through the morning, SASSACUS sustained 12.5-13 knots, enough to steadily gain on the blockade runner.  This was obviously noted aboard the pursued vessel, for through his spyglass Roe observed cargo being thrown overboard to lighten ship.  Around noon SASSACUS had closed within range of her forward 100-pounder.  Union shells began splashing around the still fleeing runner.  Tellingly, she turned sharply toward shore to duck into shallower water.

Perhaps accidently, perhaps not, the mystery ship ran aground at New Inlet, North Carolina.  Her crew set her aflame and fled to the lifeboats, leaving her engines running.  As SASSACUS pulled to within musket range one of the lifeboats capsized, spilling rebel crewmen.  Roe lowered a boat but was only able to save the blockade runner’s purser.  From him he learned the vessel was the brand-new iron-hulled steamer Nutfield, making her first run from Bermuda.  She measured 750 tons burden and carried munitions, Enfield rifles, a battery of eight Whitworth rifled cannon, quinine, assorted merchandise and a quantity of pig lead to be recast into musket balls.  The cannon and the lead had been the cargo Roe observed being thrown overboard.

Recognizing Nutfield to be one of the newest and best steamers off the Thames ways, Roe worked through the night to free the runner.  But alas she was too fast to be re-floated.  Roe off-loaded the Enfield rifles, the quinine, and several compasses, then set her afire.  USS FLORIDA shortly arrived, and together they pummeled the stranded runner with gunfire.  Finally, convinced the steamer was completely wrecked, SASSACUS departed about 1900 the evening of the 5^th.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  9 FEB 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. IV-12, IV-15.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 350.

“Report of Commander Crosby, U.S. Navy, Commanding U.S.S. Florida.”  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 9, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from May 5, 1863, to May 4, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 460-61.

“Report of Lieutenant-Commander Roe, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. Sassacus.”  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 9, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from May 5, 1863, to May 4, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 459-60.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  SASSACUS survived the war, seeing subsequent duty in North Carolina’s sounds against the Confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle.  She participated in the siege of Fort Fisher and patrolled the Chesapeake in April 1865 in search of conspirators in the Lincoln assassination.  She was sold in 1868.  Sassacus remembers a great sachem of the Pequot tribe of Massachusetts in the early 1600s.  He endured the rebellion of the Mohegans, a subjugated tribe, who eventually defeated Sassacus with the help of the English and Narragansett Indian allies in what is known today as the Pequot War.  Sassacus fled to Iroquois lands near present-day Long Island, New York, but there was betrayed and killed by the Mohawk of the Iroquois Confederation.

The wreck of Wild Dayrell was surveyed in 2006 by Tidewater Atlantic Research, Inc., as a North Carolina cultural resource.  She lies in Rich Inlet, about 20 miles north of Fort Fisher.  The wreck of Nutfield has not been surveyed to this writer’s knowledge.

Pig lead is lead in ingot form.  Molten lead is smelted from lead ore, galena.  A channel conducts the molten lead from the smelting furnace and into multiple side channels coming off perpendicularly, all in the same direction.   As such, the side channels resemble piglets suckling from a sow.

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                                    THE BLOCKADE OF FLORIDA

Seminole Indians, angered over President Andrew Jackson’s plan for their relocation to the Oklahoma Indian Territory, rose up on 28 December 1835 and attacked a column of Army troops under MAJ Francis L. Dade south of Tampa, Florida.  Only three of Dade’s 110 men escaped the massacre.  The Second Seminole War was thus ignited, the only Indian war in which our Navy played a significant role.

Whether or not arms and ammunition were being run to the Seminoles by the Spanish from Cuba, as Floridian officials continuously insisted, is arguable.  But on this day, in response to Florida Governor John H. Eaton’s persistence, Secretary of the Navy Mahlon Dickerson ordered a blockade of the southern coast of Florida.  The job fell to the West Indies Squadron, but Commodore Alexander J. Dallas had only five ships as his disposal–the venerable 38-gun frigate CONSTELLATION, the sloops-of-war ST. LOUIS, 20, WARREN, 20, and VANDALIA, 18, and the schooner GRAMPUS, 12. 

To our 1830s Navy, maritime blockade was an unknown mission.  Since her foundational years our Navy had served only two missions: the Federalist task of guerre de course by lone-ranging independent ships; and the Jeffersonian reservation of the Navy for harbor and inshore defense.  The frame of mind necessary to manage an offensive blockade didn’t exist among Naval officers, Commodore Dallas in particular.  In this Seminole War there were no enemy cruisers to attack, merchantmen to intercept, or fleets to engage.  Dallas’ strategic orientation did not suit the tasking.  Furthermore, possessed of only deep draft warships, blue-water cruising was his only viable course–and gun running to Florida could have been more easily done with shallow-draft skiffs and barges working up through the Keys.  As a result, this blockade of Florida wasn’t our most shining accomplishment.

Dallas also found his attentions distracted by competing priorities.  New England merchants were ranting over losses to Haitian pirates.  Texas was striking for independence from Mexico, and the simultaneous Creek War in Georgia demanded Marine Corps support.  But most damning, our Navy never believed that arms were being run to the Seminoles in the first place.  Dallas would find it impossible to prioritize a mission he judged unnecessary from the outset.

Not surprisingly, no filibustering captures were made off Florida during the 1836-42 blockade, though it was maintained continuously throughout the Seminole uprising.  Our greatest contribution to the conflict turned out to be a “mosquito fleet” of shallow-draft riverine craft that took the fight to the enemy in Florida’s wetlands.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  26 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Buker, George E.  Swamp Sailors:  Riverine Warfare in the Everglades, 1835-1842.  Gainesville, FL: Univ. Presses of Florida, 1975, pp. 1-5, 34-35, 47-48.  Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 171.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 130.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 244.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 8 “W-Z”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, p. 107.

Mahon, John K.  History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842.  Gainesville, FL: Univ. of Florida Press, 1985, pp. 121, 171, 220.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 40.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The Second Seminole War is an example of how not to run a joint operation.  Throughout the conflict the Army continued to believe the Indians were being supplied from Cuba and could not fathom why the Navy didn’t prevent such.  The Navy thought the opposite, and until the advent of the “mosquito fleet” in 1840, there was very little coordination between Army and Navy operations.

ST. LOUIS was to have an exceptionally long career for a wooden sloop.  She was built by the Navy, for the Navy, at the Washington Navy Yard in 1828 and initially served as the flagship for Dallas’ West Indies Squadron.  She was transferred to the Pacific Squadron in 1839.  After showing our American flag for the first time in San Francisco Bay, she transferred to Singapore with our East Indies Squadron.  Again a flagship, she was re-assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron in 1852.  She served twice with the African Squadron, suppressing slave trading in the pre-Civil War years, then patrolled with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during that latter momentous conflict.  From 1866-94 she was laid up at Philadelphia as a receiving ship and training ship for the Pennsylvania Naval Militia.  In 1894 she was formally loaned to the state Militia and in 1904 her name was changed to USS KEYSTONE STATE in deference to that organization.  She was finally stricken from the Naval Vessels Register on 6 August 1906 and sold for scrap.  Her 78-year career, marked by multiple re-fits, spanned four wars and allowed the training of countless naval personnel.

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                                            THE BERLIN AIRLIFT

After the surrender of the Axis, the major Allied powers occupied Germany’s territory under a divided arrangement.  Then shortly, France, England, the US, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg began working to rebuild the tattered German economy and restore a benign German state.  Russia stood alone in opposition, demanding harsh reparations for her war losses and refusing to relinquish control of the German soil she held.  Frustrated at Soviet obstinacy, in 1948 the Western nations met in Brussels and voted to forge ahead without Stalin.  They united their individual holdings into a restored (West) German Republic and introduced a new, stable, non-inflated currency.

Berlin proved a vulnerability in this Western initiative, as the former German capitol lay entirely within the Soviet occupation zone.  The city itself was divided between British, US, French, and Soviet sectors.  The western sectors united under the Brussels Pact and stood as an island inside East Germany.  Stalin, who wished Germany to be entirely Communist, reacted predictably.  Citing “technical difficulties” he closed all rail, road, and river supply lines into West Berlin on 24 June 1948.  With the hard German winter approaching, Stalin then cut off all electric power under his control into West Berlin.

The Allies debated whether to forcibly re-open the supply routes or write off Berlin as a Cold War casualty.  Neither was deemed acceptable, and agreement was reached on an effort never before attempted at that scale, a massive airlift.  B-29s, C-47s, C-52s and C-54s leftover from WWII were quickly returned to service to carry food, clothing, coal, and other necessities to the 2.5 million isolated Free Berliners.  Perhaps because he thought the effort would fail, or perhaps because he hoped for resumption of talks, Stalin never denied use of the airspace over the Soviet zone.  But even with Berliners rationed to a few slices of bread, 2 oz. of Spam and 3 oz. of potatoes a day, there was a phenomenal payload requirement.  Around the clock for a year, cargo-laden planes thudded down at Gatow airfield in the British sector, Tegel in the French zone and crumbling Templehof in the American zone.  On this day, the first of two US Navy transport squadrons was recalled from the Pacific to assist.

“Operation Vittles” far exceeded all expectations and proved a propaganda embarrassment to Stalin, who quietly lowered the blockade early in 1949.  Though they played a small part overall, the 24 Navy R5Ds of VR-6 and VR-8 nevertheless set impressive records.  Between 7 November and 31 July 1949 they carried 129,989 tons of cargo, a payload record, and over the entire 8 months kept their aircraft operational an unequalled 10 hours/plane/day.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  3 NOV 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Collier, Richard.  Bridge Across the Sky:  The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, 1948-1949.  New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1978.

Department of the Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare).  United States Naval Aviation 1910-1980.  GPO, Washington, DC, pp. 172, 173, 1981.

Love, Robert W.  History of the US Navy, Vol 2  1942-1991. Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, PA, pp. 295, 1992.

“Naval Aviation’s Involvement in the Berlin Airlift.”  Navy Historical Center website.  www.history.navy.mil/ branches/org4-10.htm, 22 October 2001.

Parrish, Thomas.  Berlin in the Balance:  The Blockade-The Airlift_The First Major Battle of the Cold War.  Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1998.

Weisberger, Bernard A.  Cold War Cold Peace:  The United States and Russia since 1945.  American Heritage Pub., New York, NY, pp. 89-96, 1984.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  In order to promote payload efficiency, the airlift commanders instituted a 100-point rating scale designed to identify the best air crews.  In the critical period of December 1948-April 1949, VR-8 earned an efficiency rating off the scale at 120.2.  Second and third place ratings were recorded by two Air Force squadrons at 97.3 and 90.9, respectively.

          The R5D was the Navy version of the 4-engine Douglas C-54, known in the civilian world as the DC-4.  Its cargo capacity was 15,000 pounds.

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                                         THE “ANACONDA” PLAN

At the outbreak of the Civil War the senior-most officer in our federal Army was GEN Winfield Scott, the victor of the Mexican War of the 1840s.  As an overall strategy to deal with the Confederacy, his staff dusted off that which had worked so well in that Mexican War, an epic, Napoleonic clash of land armies culminating in the capture of the capital city of Richmond.  To support this scenario, the US Navy would attenuate the enemy’s counter-campaign by clamping a tight naval blockade on the Confederacy.  Indeed, Mexico and the Confederacy had much in common.  Both were large land masses with miles of coastline.  Both had navigable rivers penetrating their sparsely populated heartland.  Both were agrarian, non-industrialized economies, whose commerce centered in a few key seaports.  Neither had a significant Navy, nor the resources to build one.

The Mississippi River was included in Scott’s blockade plan, as its capture would complete the encirclement of the Rebels and split off the Trans-Mississippi region, the breadbasket of southern food production.  A seaborne blockade coupled with control of the Mississippi would constrict the South much as would an imaginary python.  Scott’s plan was quickly dubbed the “Anaconda” strategy.

Lincoln was dispossessed of a better alternative and accepted the strategy despite the fact that declaring a blockade amounted to de facto recognition of the Confederate republic.  On this date, six days after the fall of Fort Sumter, Lincoln announced the closure of southern ports from South Carolina to Texas (Virginia had only seceded 17 April and North Carolina did so on 20 May).

The executive order caught the US Navy unprepared.  Leadership had grown gray with many aged officers lingering on the active roster, reluctant to relinquish their paychecks.  Bright junior officers stagnated under a clogged promotion system.  By 1861 for example, David Dixon Porter had served 20 years as a Lieutenant.  Our warship inventory had been allowed to deteriorate in both numbers and technology.  Of the 90 ships in commission, 50 were vessels of sail, many too derelict to get underway.  Only 38 were steam powered and 20% of these were inoperable.  Worse, many of our seaworthy ships were deployed at that moment, showing the flag in far-flung corners of the world.  The Union Navy on this day had but 24 ships to affect Scott’s plan!  A Blockade Strategy Board was quickly convened to authorize the purchase and outfitting of yachts, ferries, whalers, tugs–even garbage scows.  The civilian masters of these vessels were often commissioned directly as acting Naval officers.  And within several months, the Union Navy was getting back on her feet, patrolling the Confederate coast.

Watch1 for more “Today in Naval History”  25 APR 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, p. 131.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. I-9, VI-30.

Eisenschiml, Otto and Ralph Newman.  Eyewitness: The Civil War as We Lived It.  New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1956, pp. 346-55.

Surdam. David G.  Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War.  Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2001.

Trotter, William R.  Ironclads and Columbiads:  The Civil War in North Carolina, The Coast.  Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair Pub., 1989, pp. 25-29.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  David Dixon Porter’s date of rank as a Lieutenant was 27 February 1841.  Three days after Lincoln proclaimed the blockade above LT Porter received his next promotion–to Commander (the rank of Lieutenant Commander was not authorized until May 1864).

Over the course of the Civil War from 1861-65 the size of the Union fleet rose from 90 to 670 vessels, 1300 to 6700 officers, 7500 to 51,500 seamen, while the annual budget rose from $12 million to $123 million.

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                                         QUARANTINE OF CUBA

On the 14^th of October, 1962, a high-flying Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane photographed what appeared to be a missile base under construction at San Cristobal, Cuba.  Shortly it was learned that Soviet Il-28 “Beagle” attack bombers were being assembled in Cuba as well.  President Kennedy rushed into emergency session with his closest advisors to address this obvious threat, and after five days of marathon deliberation the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended a surgical airstrike against the Cuban base.  Kennedy however, opted to confront the Soviets with the more open and flexible choice–a naval blockade, making a careful choice of the less militant term “quarantine.” 

On the 22^nd Kennedy went on national TV to announce the situation and his plans to the American public.  Task Force 135 centered around USS ESSEX (CVS-9), the heavy cruisers CANBERRA (CAG-2) and NEWPORT NEWS (CA-148), and a squadron of destroyers was deployed under VADM Alfred G. Ward on a perimeter line 500 miles off the eastern tip of Cuba.  The ENTERPRISE (CVAN-65) and INDEPENDENCE (CVA-62) carrier groups stood by.  The quarantine went into effect this morning.  An anxious public held its breath as Soviet ships already at sea steamed toward the quarantine line, shadowed by US reconnaissance planes.  But hours later, 24 of 25 Soviet ships had reportedly stopped well outside the 500-mile limit.  Several freighters did approach the line in subsequent days, the tanker Bucharest was stopped by GEARING (DD-710), and Marucla was stopped by JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, JR. (DD-850) and JOHN R. PIERCE (DD-753).  Both freighters were allowed to proceed after inspections revealed no contraband.

On October 26^th Kennedy received an impassioned letter from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev justifying the missiles for the defense of Cuba.  The Premier cracked the door of compromise by offering to remove the weapons from Cuba if Kennedy pledged not to invade that nation, a reference to the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961.  Before Kennedy had a chance to respond, a second angry communiqué arrived from the Kremlin adding another demand–the withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey.  In a calculated move Kennedy decided to respond affirmatively to Khrushchev’s first letter and ignore his second.

Moscow backed down.  In November the Soviet freighter Volgoles, with missiles plainly visible on her deck, was tracked back across the Atlantic.  The embarrassment proved fatal to Khrushchev’s career and resulted in an abrupt change in Soviet naval strategy.  Their previous emphasis on the submarine waned as Russia re-recognized the value of a strong surface force.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  28 OCT 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Abel, Elie.  The Missile Crisis.  Philadelphia, PA: J.P. Lippincott, 1966.

Allison, Graham T.  Essence of Decision:  Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.  New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1971.

Blight, James G. and David A. Welch.  On the Brink:  Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis.  New York, NY: Noonday Press, 1990.

Brugioni, Dino A.  Eyeball to Eyeball:  The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  New York, NY: Random House, 1991.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, pp. 216-17.

Thompson, Robert Smith.  The Missiles of October:  The Declassified Story of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  New York, NY: Simon & Shuster, 1992.

Utz, Curtis A.  Cordon of Steel: The U.S. Navy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC: GPO, 1993.

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                                          THE PETERHOF AFFAIR

The Union Navy’s blockade of the Confederacy during the Civil War yielded quite a few captures.  In disposing of these ships and their cargoes, there emerged a controversy over what to do with the mail pouches often found aboard.  In the opinion Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, mail was part of the cargo and was subject to legal search.  Secretary of State William Seward, however, espoused the equally logical argument that mail is an international institution to be held above national squabbles, and the Navy should make every effort to forward confiscated mail to the addressee, unopened.  Seward trumped the issue by communicating his opinion to Lord John Russell of the British government, who assumed Seward spoke for President Lincoln.  Russell read Seward’s opinion into the Parliamentary record.  Now with the legitimacy of Parliament, this “ruling” became a boon to British blockade runners.  Their true bills of lading could now be sheltered from discovery as sealed mail.

One of the “test cases” for this issue involved the British-flagged blockade runner Peterhof who departed Liverpool in February 1863 ostensibly for Matamoros, Mexico (until a sailor let slip the true destination of Brownsville, Texas).  Secretly learning the nature of Peterhof’s freight, the American consul in London alerted Secretary Welles’ office, who had Peterhof intercepted in St. Thomas by USS VANDERBILT on this date.  The runner was taken to New York, where Prize Commissioner Henry H. Elliott entertained opening the ship’s mail pouch in search of evidence.  British ambassador E.M. Archibald protested, and President Lincoln soon found himself besieged by Seward and Welles, whose disdain for each other was only surpassed by their passion for their positions.

Lincoln heard both sides and labored over a decision.  He recognized that contemporary British sympathies leaned dangerously toward the Confederacy, as the South was the main supplier of cotton for the burgeoning British textile industry.  Yet Welles offered compelling arguments that a ruling in favor of the sanctity of the mails would weaken the blockade, demoralize Union Navy squadrons, and lengthen the war.  Unable to make up his mind, Lincoln asked each Secretary to draft his respective opinion into a formal position paper for more deliberate study.

Welles attacked this tasking with his remarkable industry, forestalling work on all other issues for a week while he called in subject matter experts and drafted a 5600-word response.  But behind the scenes, Seward used the time to again overtake the issue.  When Welles finally delivered his tome on April 27^th, Peterhof’s mail pouch was already being routed, unopened.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  28 FEB 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. III-35, IV-29, VI-49.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 273.

Niven, John.  Gideon Welles:  Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy.  Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1973, pp. 454-58.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Confiscated blockade runners were valued in the Union Navy, the same qualities of speed and stealth that made them good runners also gave them an edge in blockade related pursuits.  But the legal wranglings associated with this case delayed the transfer of Peterhof.  She was not outfitted and commissioned into service with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron until February 1864.  Her career was very short, however.  Within the first week of her arrival for duty at New Inlet, North Carolina, she was involved in a collision with USS MONTICELLO and sank.  PETERHOF’s wreck was located in 1963, and several of her guns are now displayed at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, the Carteret County Museum of History, and the Fort Fisher State Historical Site.

Matamoros, Mexico, situated just south of the Texas border, and Brownsville on the opposite shore of the Rio Grande, were convenient ports of call for blockade runners.  Contraband goods could be landed, allowing wagon trains to carry the goods across Texas to the Red River.  From there, they were shipped via the Mississippi River and points east.

Today the U.S. Code requires that mail arriving in a US port from any vessel be delivered to the Postal Service within three hours of docking.  However, such mail may be seized if “probable cause” exists that its contents violate federal law or postal regulations.

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