BLOCKADING THE SOUTHcapture of the South’s ports could
provide a foolproof way of restricting
Confederate shipping. Swift steamers
traveling at night often eluded Union
patrol ships, and even in 1865, when
the siege was at its tightest, about half
of all Confederate blockade-runners
completed their voyages.Taking the ports
Joint army-navy operations to close
down various Confederate ports became
an important part of the war effort, and
the first Federal military successes
post-Bull Run involved the capture of
ports in North Carolina and South
Carolina. Not only did these amphibious
operations close coastal entry points
into the Confederacy, but they alsoprovided bases at which Union ships
could fuel and draw supplies near
their assigned duty stations, instead of
making the long journey to their posts
from their Northern bases. The Union
navy would capture Wilmington, North
Carolina—the last Confederate port—in
January 1865.
The effectiveness of the blockade
remains uncertain. Some historians
have argued that it “won” the war for
the Union, while others see its effects
as negligible. The answer probably lies
somewhere in between.
By itself, the Union blockade could
not have ensured a Federal victory, but
the siege played an important role in
the eventual exhaustion of Southern
resources. Its increasing effectiveness
prevented the Confederacy from easily
importing military supplies (including
those related to railroads), and the
closing of coastal shipping in the
Southern territories put extra strain on
the under-repaired railroad network.“We propose a powerful
movement down the
Mississippi to the ocean.”
GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT, IN A LETTER TO GEORGE B. MCLELLAN, MAY 3,1861Union Flag Officer Samuel du Pont
Du Pont scored an important victory in November 1861
by capturing Port Royal, South Carolina, which was the
best natural harbor on the south Atlantic coast and
provided an important base for Union blockaders.Blockade duty briefly made the United
States an important naval power. But
despite its modern ships, it remained
inferior to Britain’s Royal Navy.BRITAIN’S SUPERIOR FLEET
The Union navy’s vast expansion increased
its fighting power, but the sheer number of its
ships still did not make it a match for the British
Royal Navy, accustomed to patrolling the seas of
the entire globe. Most Union navy ships were
designed for the relatively simple purpose of
enforcing the blockade near the Southern coast.
They were only lightly armed, since their
targets, the Confederate blockade-runners,
carried few if any weapons.POSTWAR DEMOBILIZATION
Before the Civil War, the United States had
looked toward its vast land frontier, as opposed
to trading overseas. This put limits on how much
it was willing to invest in naval power. The need
to blockade the Confederacy provided a
temporary surge in the navy’s resources, but
after the Civil War the Union navy was swiftly
demobilized. The United States would not
become a major naval power or fight a naval war
until the Spanish-American War in the last
decade of the 19th century.AFTER
An important prewar newspaper editor
and politician in Connecticut, Welles
worked in the Navy Department during
the War with Mexico. He developed
anti-slavery views and opposed the
Compromise of 1850’s controversial
Fugitive Slave Law. He joined the
Republican Party after the passage
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.
As navy secretary during the Civil
War, he and his chief deputy, Gustavus
Vasa Fox, proved to be energetic and
effective administrators. Not only did
they supervise the rapid expansion of the
Union navy, but they also exercised good
judgment in selecting senior officers.UNION POLITICIAN (1802–78)GIDEON WELLES
hugely expanded Union
army, this still represented an
unprecedented increase in
U.S. naval power.
While the increase in ships clearly
tightened the blockade, only the