Of all parts of the war, the naval war favored the Union. They had some initial advantages, but crucially they took full advantage of them, while the South was generally reactive and uncoordinated. The blockade, and the coastal raids connected with it, was the longest campaign of the war, and one of the decisive ones.
It did not immediately choke the Confederacy, and by some measures it didn’t reduce trade very much – in 1863 Confederate exports were worth as much as in 1860. But Confederate imports were dramatically reduced, and since the South lacked industry and war materials the gradual diminution of imports first affected civilian life, then limited military plans, then was part of the final collapse of the war effort.
It started slowly. In 1860 the US Navy had 42 warships in commission – most of which were far from home. Fewer than a dozen were available to shut down trade with the Confederacy, but that didn’t stop Lincoln declaring a blockade on April 19, 1861. Declaring a blockade and making it a reality were two very different things. The Southern coast was over 3,500 miles long, and had a number of large ports as well as many minor ones. The US Navy couldn’t possibly blockade all the coast, even with the ships called home and the new ones commissioned from the merchant fleet. But they didn’t have to blockade everything. The South needed to get supplies into the country, and there were any number of places they could be run ashore in small Florida or Texas bays, but they also needed to get the supplies to the troops. That meant inland transport, which really meant railroads or navigable rivers – and that narrowed the list down to about 10 ports.
If that helped the Union, another factor hurt badly. There were only two useful bases for the blockaders. Ships covering the Atlantic ports could operate out of Fort Monroe, Virginia (opposite Norfolk, and right from the start blockading one of the ten major ports); ships operating in the Gulf of Mexico were based at Key West, Florida. Both bases were adequate as far as they went, but didn’t go far enough: they were miles from the action. Union blockaders might spend half their time steaming to and from their bases, severely limiting their effective patrol.
The first priority was getting more ships, and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles did that quickly. New ships were built, and thanks to Northern industrial might they were built quickly. But even more, suitable ships were bought from the merchant navy and converted into warships by the addition of a few guns.
The second priority was then to get these ships where they were needed – and that required new bases. The first expedition was organized in August 1861, with a dual purpose. The Confederates were able to run supplies into the North Carolina ports through the sheltered waters of the Pamlico and Hatteras Sounds. They were also fitting raiders to prey on Union merchant traffic. Obviously Washington wanted to stop this, and nothing could be better than to turn the former “nest of pirates” into a base for blockaders. This was quickly accomplished by Ben Butler and Silas Stringham of the Navy, with rifled naval guns pounding the HATTERAS ISLAND BATTERIES. In two days the tables had been turned. The Sounds were shut to Confederate traffic, and the US Navy had an advanced base.
The next move didn’t require any real fighting. In September New England troops and the USS Massachusetts sailed down to Ship Island, Mississippi, and captured some incomplete fortifications after firing a few shells. This provided an advanced base to watch New Orleans and Mobile, the two largest cotton exporting ports in the world.
The Union spent most of the rest of 1861 consolidating its naval position and commissioning more ships to tighten the blockade. But the Confederates had plans too. Pensacola, Florida was blockaded not by ships but by Fort Pickens. The war had almost started at Pensacola rather than Charleston, and the Confederates wanted to punish what they saw as Federal bad faith and also to open the port. But a surprise land night land attack, the battle of SANTA ROSA ISLAND , failed, and the Confederates fell back.
The last important action of 1861 was another almost-bloodless Union attack. In late October a large fleet set out for Port Royal, South Carolina (now Beaufort); when storms sank several transports with ammunition and landing craft the Navy had to take the leading role. (There were over 12,000 soldiers because forts still were reckoned stronger than warships.) On November 7 Flag Officer (the Navy didn’t yet use the rank of Admiral) Samuel du Pont proved that forts weren’t so strong. He blasted two forts, with 43 guns, to bits; the Confederates abandoned them. For 31 casualties the US Navy now had the finest harbor on the southern Atlantic coast. The troops became a garrison, fanning out to liberate the Sea Islands and their many slaves; over the years thousands more slaves would run to freedom, and some of the first African American regiments would be organized in South Carolina. The sudden, sizeable, Union presence forced a Confederate response. They had to organize a better system of coast defenses than the one that tried to defend everything – and hadn’t worked. Robert E. Lee was sent down, and he concentrated on only defending the important places, at the same time integrating militia with a much smaller number of regulars, thus freeing troops to go elsewhere.
In 1862 the scene first shifted back to North Carolina. Over the winter Ambrose Burnside had recruited a division of New Englanders skilled with boats for amphibious operations; he led them into the North Carolina sounds in February. The goals were several: deprive the Confederates of bases from which they could attack the Union garrison, capture ports so there was no possibility of ships sneaking in, and by occupying coastal enclaves threaten to move inland – thus pinning down rebel troops. In February Burnside started by seizing ROANOKE ISLAND against unprepared Confederate resistance. (The southern commander had warned Richmond, but was ignored.) In mid-March Burnside moved from his new base and captured NEW BERNE. He also took FORT MACON, which sealed off New Berne. In mid-April, with nerves jangling about the CSS Virginia, he dispatched troops to SOUTH MILLS to stop her being shifted south, but the expedition was turned back. The final engagement was at TRANTER’S CREEK, which was only a Union infantry probe to put some pressure on the Confederates.
Meanwhile, the Union plan was to tighten the blockade by sealing major ports, not just capturing blockade-runners at sea. At FORT PULASKI the Navy put forces under the command of David Hunter ashore. His engineer was Quincy Gillmore, who in two days proved that masonry forts were obsolete. When the fort surrendered, Savannah, Georgia, was sealed off.
A bigger expedition was needed for New Orleans, another target high on the Union list. New Orleans was the largest city in the South, was the largest cotton exporter in the world, and was the South’s second-most industrialized city. What’s more, the US Navy had been humiliated by a few Confederate ships in February when they chased the lazy blockading squadron downstream. In April the expedition started from Ship Island.
Flag Officer David Farragut set out to change things. He planned to destroy the two river forts with long range mortar fire, then proceed upstream with his superior fleet and smash whatever ships the Confederates had prepared. Then the Army could simply disembark at New Orleans. A week’s mortar bombardment proved ineffective, and Farragut had to change plans. So he decided to break through, isolating FORTS JACKSON AND ST PHILIP which would have to surrender. And that’s what happened. In a confusing night battle, he got through the various obstacles and pounded the ill-prepared Confederate ships. The Confederates had started two ironclads and finished neither; if they’d stuck to one they might have done better. Still, Farragut got past the forts on April 24. On the 28th he was at NEW ORLEANS; with no ships to defend the city, and the troops called away to take part in the Shiloh attack there was nothing the Confederates could do. They surrendered grudgingly, although the occupation forces didn’t arrive until May 1. Farragut took much of the blue-water navy upstream with him, exploiting the victory all he could.
The next coastal operation was nowhere near as important, simply a gunboat turning up at TAMPA , Florida and firing a few shells. The town was insignificant, as was everything in south Florida at the time, and so was the action at the end of June.
The US Navy had to blockade virtually the whole Gulf coast. In late September 1862 they shifted to the Texas coast for a prolonged series of operations. At first the intent was the same as everywhere else: to shut off Confederate supplies, supplies that had to come by ship because of wretched overland communications to the Trans-Mississippi theater. But in 1863 a new reason cropped up: to send a message to the French, who were dabbling in Mexican politics. The first target was SABINE PASS (1862), where a small naval force defeated an even smaller fort. The battle wasn’t important for itself, but it did open the door for further Union operations. The next move wasn’t from Sabine Pass, but an attack on GALVESTON (1862) on October 4. Again the Navy defeated the slight coastal defenses, but in order to spare lives in the town, Commander Renshaw allowed the Confederates to evacuate.
But Galveston didn’t stay in Union hands long. On New Year’s Day, 1863 a dawn counterattack caught the Federals off guard. Four small gunboats tore into the naval forces, capturing several and forcing the destruction of the flagship when she ran aground. Without naval support, the small land garrison surrendered. With the battle of GALVESTON (1863) John Magruder had a real morale victory for the South, but little material gain: the blockaders took up station outside the port, and few supplies slipped through the cordon.
After the embarrassment at Sabine Pass, the Union high command let operations in Texas lapse for a while. Then the situation in Mexico caused the Washington politicians to raise the priority: with the French trying to prop up their puppet “Emperor”, the Lincoln Administration wanted to increase the US military presence in Texas as a counterweight to any thoughts of a French-Confederate alliance. The instructions went to Nathaniel Banks, not the country’s best general but still commander of the Gulf Department. He in turn embarked almost a corps of infantry and sent it off to attack SABINE PASS (1863).
The Union idea was to exploit their possession of the Pass, and move up the Sabine River to the cotton-growing region of northeast Texas. They didn’t expect much resistance from the 44 men in Fort Griffin, but it turned out that the local Confederates had practiced their gunnery: they drove off the Union attack, even capturing one gunboat.
Banks was embarrassed, and dropped the idea of making his main move into Texas by sea- instead he disembarked the troops and sent them overland. (They would get bogged down in another of the OPERATIONS IN WESTERN LOUISIANA.)
Brownsville, Texas was a huge problem for the blockaders, because it was a river port and the Rio Grande was international waters – and couldn’t be blockaded. Meanwhile, the Confederates were importing substantial quantities of military and civilian goods into Texas – it was probably the single most important entry point in Texas. But it was extremely vulnerable, because there was no real garrison. In October 1863 Banks sent an infantry division which landed on a sand island in the river, then moved inland and took Brownsville, forcing all imports (which could still land in Mexico) to travel 200+ miles upriver, then cross into Texas. This raised the cost tremendously, and made it much more difficult to ship goods. Furthermore, the Federal commanded (the bountifully-named Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana) ranged north up the Texas coast, closing Corpus Christi, Matagorda, and Port Lavaca against negligible opposition. By December, Dana was probing around Galveston, but in the time available the Confederates had concentrated reserves. Dana had scattered garrisons along the way, and the Confederates were imposing enough, so he pulled back. By mid-1864 the Texas economy was badly starved, and Grant was focused on concentrating manpower where it was most needed. Many of the garrisons were removed or concentrated, but the damage had been done: the Confederate Trans-Mississippi economy was ruined.
Thus for Texas; the US Navy was using its long reach elsewhere too. At the beginning of October 1862 the Union forces were probing up Florida’s rivers. They wanted to capture the small ships that were slipping through the blockade; although these weren’t important individually, enough of them could make a difference. Also, Florida raised a substantial quantity of beef, and raiding Southern supplies was always a good idea. So the move on ST JOHN’S BLUFF was a small expedition (about 1,500 men) moving up the St John’s River. There wasn’t much fighting, nor significant results.
Up in North Carolina, the Union was raiding from its coastal bases, trying to disrupt the Confederate supply system. Probably the most important supply railroad for Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was the Wilmington & Weldon that carried supplies from Wilmington, N.C. to Richmond. Brigadier General John Foster was ordered to take his infantry division from New Berne and break the railroad at Goldsborough; the Confederates had much smaller forces in the way. At KINSTON (December 14) there was stubborn fighting, but superior Union numbers made the difference and they pushed on. At WHITE HALL there was skirmishing, and Foster kept his momentum. Finally, at GOLDSBOROUGH BRIDGE he got to the railroad despite rebel delaying efforts. The Union troops tore up rails for a short distance, and turned around, getting back to New Berne on the 20th. They had drawn attention to themselves, and in the spring Lee would send Longstreet into the area, but there was no lasting damage to the railroad.
1863 opened slowly, except in Texas. The Union wanted to attack Charleston, but knew the city was strongly defended. So in March Rear Admiral du Pont decided to start smaller, and test his new ships. Three of the new ironclads attacked FORT MCALLISTER, doing no real damage but not suffering themselves. Fort McAllister had only three guns, but it was an earthen fort, just pointing out the difference between the fragile masonry forts and the sturdier (and cheaper) earthworks. The SIEGE OF CHARLESTON then began in April, lasting to September.
Late in the year there was another pin-prick raid in Florida, at FORT BROOKE . A small Union expedition went up the Hillsborough River and caused the destruction of three small ships; on their way back they were jumped by a few infantrymen. This sort of action was typical of the hundreds of small raids along the Florida coast.
The Confederates never accepted the loss of any territory, and always schemed various ways to recover their ports. Whether it was Magruder’s surprise attack at Galveston, or Longstreet’s operations in Tidewater that might have recaptured a port, they always hoped. In April 1864 things went their way. Laboriously the CSS Albemarle had been build in a field in North Carolina. Her crew was about as green as her planks, but she was more potent than anything the US Navy had in the area. Great hopes were pinned on her as the cutting edge of operations to undo all that Burnside had done in 1862. At first she was successful; she isolated the garrison of PLYMOUTH, which then had to surrender to Confederate infantry under Robert Hoke. Her next battle was a draw in the ALBEMARLE SOUND against more numerous (but individually weaker) Union ships. After that US Navy reinforcements kept her bottled up, until a brave small boat expedition blew her up one dark night, winning Medals of Honor for the whole crew.
The Albemarle was a distraction to the Union. More important were the two big ports still open to the South: Mobile, Alabama, and Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1864 General Grant had his eyes on Mobile, which was invitingly open to land attack provided the land campaign up the RED RIVER was completed in time. When it wasn’t, he scratched the land attack and asked the Navy to launch an amphibious attack to seal off the port. Farragut was put in charge of the naval part of the operation, while Gordon Granger commanded the ground troops. A fort on either side of the channel dominated the approaches, Fort Gaines to the west and Fort Morgan on the east. The army settled down to besiege Fort Gaines, but progress was slow. So Farragut decided to run between the two forts, after having his small craft remove as many of the “torpedoes” (now called mines) in the channel. He knew there were still plenty of torpedoes, and on August 5 he went for it. His ironclads led the way, and one of them hit a torpedo and sank in a few seconds. Confusion and alarm threatened to wreck the attack, and Farragut pulled his flagship out of the line and gave the order “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”. This took the fleet out of the forts fire, and they could concentrate on just fighting the CSS Tennessee. This was the most powerful (and also the clumsiest) ship the Confederacy had ever built, and she fought fiercely but eventually couldn’t steer. US sailors boarded her, capturing the surviving crew. Farragut had the forts behind him, but he cut off their supplies, and before the end of the month both had surrendered. Mobile was sealed off.
That still left Wilmington, North Carolina, open to the blockade runners. Fort Fisher dominated the approaches, keeping Union blockaders away as the ships with supplies vital to Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia crept in at night. Grant knew how important Wilmington was, and if Wilmington was important then all fingers pointed to Fort Fisher. The first effort was in late December 1864, with Ben Butler and David Porter combining to lead the Union attack. Lee heard of the embarkation of a large force and detached a division to reinforce Wilmington; he weakened his line at Petersburg but if Wilmington fell then Petersburg was untenable anyway. Butler knew how strong Fort Fisher was and decided to destroy it with a floating bomb, a ship packed with over 200 tons of gunpowder that would be floated next to the fort and then detonated. It was an interesting idea, but wrong – not only did the ship never get close enough to the fort, most of the force of the explosion went straight upwards. The infantry found the fort intact, and then Hoke’s division of Confederate infantry arrived to put an end to the attack on FORT FISHER (1864).
Grant persevered because Wilmington was still important. He fired Ben Butler, and Porter switched back to simpler tactics. Alfred Terry would be in charge for FORT FISHER (1865). In mid-January he assembled a tremendous fleet, and simply pounded Fort Fisher from close range. At those ranges they could hardly miss, and most of the guns in the fort were knocked out, with heavy casualties for the defenders. Two days later Terry’s infantry swarmed over the fort. There was more strength in numbers than in clever ideas.
With Sherman moving up through North Carolina (after having finished with Georgia and South Carolina), the US Navy worked to keep him supplied. The capture of Fort Fisher had closed Wilmington to blockade runners, but Union forces still had to take the town before Sherman could draw supplies. Terry’s men were reinforced with John Schofield’s veteran XXIII Corps of Western troops, and a combination of frontal and flanking movements captured WILMINGTON in late February.
In March 1865 the war was winding down, but there were still aggressive Confederate forces in the backwaters. After Confederate probes near St. Marks, Florida, a Union expedition went up the St. Marks River. The infantry and the gunboats were separated and at NATURAL BRIDGE the infantry were turned back. It was another minor engagement, typical of hundreds in Florida.
The last engagement around the Confederate coast was back in southern Texas. Union forces had long since taken Brownsville, sealing that port and Matamoros, Mexico – just over the Rio Grande, where cargos had been unloaded and then moved into Texas. In May, 1865, the local commander probed upstream for no particular reason. It turned into two days of confused fighting around PALMITO RANCH , with no advantage for anyone and only a few more casualties in the last days of the war.
The US Navy had secured decisive advantages for the Federal cause all around the Confederate coast. The first objectives were adequate bases to sustain the blockade, which then began to clamp down on Confederate shipping. Gradually, naval or amphibious expeditions began to shut the ports, sometimes capturing the city itself but sometimes just capturing key positions that closed the port. Most damage was done in 1862, with New Orleans captured, and several ports in North Carolina, then in 1863 emphasis shifted to Texas as the Lincoln Administration wanted to send a signal to the French not to meddle in Mexico. In 1864 the Union systematically started to shut the remaining ports, and by 1865 they were all gone. The effect on the Confederacy was devastating: they couldn’t get cotton to the world market which eventually undermined the Confederate dollar; they couldn’t import civilian goods or industrial material that the South couldn’t produce; they couldn’t import enough military supplies to keep the armies rolling. Yes, much did get through, but only a tiny fraction of traffic in ordinary times, and far less than if there had been no blockade.
On top of that, the captured ports became bases for Union forces to move inland, putting pressure on the Confederacy from all directions and diverting troops from the armies to static garrisons. Union armies could also be supplied by sea, so Sherman could march through Georgia – because he knew he’d have supplies at the far end.
Meanwhile, the Confederates had to invest heavily in coastal defenses, not just in heavy artillery but troops. All states except Tennessee and Arkansas were invaded by sea, and Governors did what they could to defend their state – whatever the cost to the central war effort.
