Editing Privateer (section)

==== American Civil War ====
[[File:Privateer Savannah.jpg|thumb|CSS ''Savannah'', a [[Confederate privateer]].]]

During the [[American Civil War]], privateering took on several forms including [[Blockade runners of the American Civil War|blockade running]], while privateering generally occurred in the interests of both the North and the South. [[Letters of marque]] would often be issued to private shipping companies and other private owners of ships, authorizing them to engage vessels deemed to be unfriendly to the issuing government. Crews of ships were awarded the cargo and other prizes aboard any captured vessel as an incentive to search far and wide for ships attempting to supply the Confederacy, or aid the Union, as the case may be.

During the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] Confederate President [[Jefferson Davis]] issued letters of marque to anyone who would employ their ship to either attack Union shipping or bring badly needed supplies through the Union blockade into southern ports.<ref>{{cite journal | first = Brainerd | last = Dyer | title = Confederate Naval and Privateering Activities in the Pacific | journal = Pacific Historical Review | volume = 3 | number = 4 | date = 1934 | pages = 433–443 | jstor = 3633146 | doi = 10.2307/3633146}}</ref>

Most of the supplies brought into the Confederacy were carried aboard privately owned vessels. When word came about that the Confederacy was willing to pay almost any price for military supplies, various interested parties designed and built specially designed lightweight seagoing steamers, [[Blockade runners of the American Civil War|blockade runners]] specifically designed and built to outrun Union ships on [[Union blockade|blockade]] patrol.<ref>Hamilton Cochran, ''Blockade Runners of the Confederacy'' (U of Alabama Press, 2005).</ref>

Neither the United States nor Spain authorized privateers in their  war in 1898.<ref>Scott D. Wagner, "Why there was no privateering in the Spanish-American War." ''International Journal of Naval History'' 14.1 (2018).</ref>