<P> By the end of 1861, the Navy had grown to 24,000 officers and enlisted men, over 15,000 more than in antebellum service . Four squadrons of ships were deployed, two in the Atlantic and two in the Gulf of Mexico . </P> <P> Blockade service was attractive to Federal seamen and landsmen alike . Blockade station service was considered the most boring job in the war but also the most attractive in terms of potential financial gain . The task was for the fleet to sail back and forth to intercept any blockade runners . More than 50,000 men volunteered for the boring duty, because food and living conditions on ship were much better than the infantry offered, the work was safer, and especially because of the real (albeit small) chance for big money . Captured ships and their cargoes were sold at auction and the proceeds split among the sailors . When Eolus seized the hapless blockade runner Hope off Wilmington, North Carolina, in late 1864, the captain won $13,000 ($203,409 today), the chief engineer $6,700, the seamen more than $1,000 each, and the cabin boy $533, compared to infantry pay of $13 ($203 today) per month . The amount garnered for a prize of war widely varied . While the little Alligator sold for only $50, bagging the Memphis brought in $510,000 ($7,979,872 today) (about what 40 civilian workers could earn in a lifetime of work). In four years, $25 million in prize money was awarded . </P> <P> While a large proportion of blockade runners did manage to evade the Union ships, as the blockade matured, the type of ship most likely to find success in evading the naval cordon was a small, light ship with a short draft--qualities that facilitated blockade running but were poorly suited to carrying large amounts of heavy weaponry, metals, and other supplies badly needed by the South . To be successful in helping the Confederacy, a blockade runner had to make many trips; eventually, most were captured or sunk . Nonetheless, five out of six attempts to evade the Union blockade were successful . During the war, some 1,500 blockade runners were captured or destroyed . </P> <P> Ordinary freighters were too slow and visible to escape the Navy . The blockade runners therefore relied mainly on new steamships built in Britain with low profiles, shallow draft, and high speed . Their paddle - wheels, driven by steam engines that burned smokeless anthracite coal, could make 17 kn (31 km / h; 20 mph). Because the South lacked sufficient sailors, skippers and shipbuilding capability, the runners were built, commanded and manned by British officers and sailors . Private British investors spent perhaps £ 50 million on the runners ($250 million in U.S. dollars, equivalent to about $2.5 billion in 2006 dollars). The pay was high: a Royal Navy officer on leave might earn several thousand dollars (in gold) in salary and bonus per round trip, with ordinary seamen earning several hundred dollars . </P>

How did the union blockade of the southern coast affect the confederacy