Naval affairs were among the most critical problems facing each side in
1861. The Federal navy was woefully small and widely scattered.
Moreover, the Confederate seacoast extended 3,500 miles from the
Chesapeake Bay to the Mexican border. It contained hundreds of inlets,
bays, and river openings. Not even a drastically enlarged Federal navy
could patrol so vast a region.
Lincoln and his Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, soon devised an
effective plan. The North would weaken the Confederacy by blockading its
chief ports--Norfolk, New Bern, Wilmington, Beaufort, Charleston,
Savannah, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston.
[Illustration: A former Hartford, Conn., newspaper editor, Sec. of
the Navy Gideon Welles was one of the more industrious and loyal
members of Lincoln's cabinet.]
[Illustration: His Confederate counterpart, Stephen R. Mallory of
Florida, was one of only two men who remained in Davis's cabinet
throughout the war.]
Lincoln accordingly proclaimed a blockade shortly after war began.
Several months passed before Federal Squadrons could begin to enforce
this blockade. Yet the Federal ring of ships became increasingly
stronger as the war progressed. As a result, Federal forces were able to
peck away at Southern coastal defenses.
In 1861 Union amphibious forces captured Fort Hatteras, N. C., and Port
Royal, S. C. During the next year Roanoke Island, N. C., New Bern, N.
C., Fort Pulaski, Ga., Fort Macon, N. C., New Orleans, La., and
Pensacola, Fla., fell into Federal hands in that order. The Confederates
rallied in 1863 and managed to hold their remaining coastal works,
particularly Charleston, S. C.
Northern fleets continued to apply pressure all along the Southern
coast. Two engagements marked the effectiveness of coastal attacks. On
August 5, 1864, Admiral David Farragut--the greatest naval figure
produced by the war--led his Federal squadron into mine-infested Mobile
Bay with the battle cry: "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"
Farragut so neutralized this last Confederate port on the Gulf of Mexico
that its surrender was an anticlimax. Then, five months later, on
January 15, 1865, Federal forces stormed and captured Fort Fisher, N.
C., the last great Southern defense on the Atlantic coast.
[Illustration: David G. Farragut's exploits in the Civil War made
him the first man in American naval history elevated to the rank of
full admiral.]
Federal navies also saw much service on the Mississippi River. A wide
assortment of Federal vessels campaigned against such Confederate
strongholds as Memphis, Tenn., and Vicksburg, Miss. Some were little
more than steamboats converted into warships by means of steel plating
and deck guns. Others were sailing craft, with high decks and tall
masts. One new type of gunboat made its appearance on the Mississippi:
the steel ram. Designed by a civilian engineer, Charles Ellet, Jr., this
little ship had great speed and maneuverability. Its principal weapon
was a heavy prow, which was used to sink a ship by striking it
broadside.
[Illustration: Ellet's steam rams had no guns and little beauty, but
by their speed they opened the Mississippi past Memphis for Federal
movements.]
The Confederacy was born without a navy. Secretary of the Navy Stephen
R. Mallory was never able to develop a fleet that could contest the
ever-increasing Federal navy. Lack of funds, lack of shipbuilding
facilities, and effective Northern diplomacy overseas restricted
Confederate efforts to privateers, to blockade-running, and for the most
part, to undertakings by individual ships.
Most of the twenty Confederate raiders achieved a measure of fame and
success before they were destroyed. For example, the C.S.S. _Florida_,
under Capt. John Newland Maffitt, captured thirty-four ships before she
herself was seized in Brazil in 1864. The English-built _Alabama_,
commanded by Capt. Raphael Semmes, compiled a more remarkable record. In
two years on the high seas, the _Alabama_ took sixty-two prizes. On June
19, 1864, however, this Confederate vessel went to the bottom off the
coast of France after an historic duel with the U.S.S. _Kearsage_.
Captain James I. Waddell's steam raider, the _Shenandoah_, roamed the
Pacific Ocean in quest of Federal game. Her crew bagged forty ships,
including eight seized two months after the war on land had ended. On
November 6, 1865, the _Shenandoah_ furled its Confederate colors in
Liverpool, England.
[Illustration: In their famous battle, the _Alabama_ (right) and
_Kearsage_ circled and fired for an hour at a range of 900 yards.
The _Alabama_ sank after many direct hits.]
The most famous Civil War contest between ships occurred March 9, 1862,
in Hampton Roads, Va. The Confederates had raised from the bottom of
Norfolk harbor the Federal warship, _Merrimac_. John Mercer Brooke and
John L. Porter had then converted the craft into an ironclad vessel
which the Confederates rechristened the _Virginia_. Sloping iron plates
four inches thick protected her decks. The ironclad carried a battering
ram weighing 1,500 pounds, plus ten guns. On March 8 the _Virginia_
steamed into Hampton Roads. She easily destroyed two wooden Federal
warships and ran a third aground.
[Illustration: The _Monitor_ (left) was the creation of Swedish-born
John Ericsson, who had difficulty in selling his strange vessel to
the Federal navy. The re-christened _Merrimac_ (right) carried more
guns, but so difficult was the ship to maneuver that it required 30
minutes to turn it around.]
On the following day, however, the North came forward with a
revolutionary weapon of its own. This was the _Monitor_, so
weird-looking a craft that sailors referred to it as a "tin can on a
shingle." The three-hour battle between the _Monitor_ and the _Virginia_
was a draw. Neither ship could pierce the plating of the other. Yet this
indecisive battle caused a revolution in naval craft, for it
foreshadowed the day when wooden ships would be obsolete.
Two months later, trapped in Hampton Roads, the _Virginia_ was run
aground and destroyed. In December, 1862, the _Monitor_ went down in an
Atlantic storm near the North Carolina coast.
The Confederates made several notable innovations in the field of naval
warfare.
One was an ironclad ram that had the appearance and characteristics of a
monster. This was the _Arkansas_, which the Confederates somehow put
together in the summer of 1862 to combat Federal ships on the
Mississippi. Constructed of wood, railroad rails, wire, and bits and
pieces of iron collected from all over the South, the _Arkansas_
scattered several Federal gunboats, created panic on the Mississippi,
and managed to survive a heavy Federal bombardment near Vicksburg.
At Baton Rouge, however, the ironclad's engines failed. The ram's
commander, Lieutenant H. K. Stevens, ordered the helpless ship
destroyed. The _Arkansas_ enjoyed only one month of action; yet Federal
Admiral David Farragut called the end of the _Arkansas_ "one of the
happiest moments of my life."
The Confederacy also had the first submarine of modern design. Built in
1863 at Mobile, the _H. L. Hunley_ was named for its inventor. In the
process of its trial runs, the thirty-five-foot vessel sank four times
and drowned as many crews. Nevertheless, the _Hunley_ was borne overland
to Charleston, S. C., to campaign against a fleet of Federal blockaders.
On the night of February 17, 1864, the little submarine torpedoed and
sank the Federal warship, _Housatonic_. But the _Hunley_ and its fifth
crew of seven men perished in the explosion.
[Illustration: This Official U. S. Navy photograph shows the
Confederate torpedo boat _David_ aground in Charleston harbor.
Semi-submersible, the _David_ is often called a submarine.]
In addition to the submarine, Confederates also developed the water mine
and the torpedo boat. The latter was a small vessel, propelled by a
steam engine. It drifted along the surface of the water and attacked
enemy ships with a torpedo suspended from a long spar. The first of
these torpedo boats, the _David_, appeared in Charleston harbor early in
October, 1863, and seriously damaged the blockading warship, _New
Ironsides_.
But such innovations could not overcome the constant and painful
pressure of large Federal fleets all along the Southern coast. So vital
were the navies to the Northern war effort, James G. Randall wrote,
"that Union victory without the naval contribution seems inconceivable."