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Lesson 7
The Civil War,1861-1865:
On Overview
Learning Objectives
• Comprehend the role of the Union Navy in the strategy for the defeat of the Confederacy.
• Comprehend the role of the Confederate Navy in the strategy for the defeat of the Union.
• Comprehend the Diplomatic efforts of the South
• Know the innovations in naval weapons and technology that emerged during the Civil War.
Remember our Themes!
• The Navy as an Instrument of Foreign Policy
• Interaction between Congress and the Navy
• Interservice Relations• Technology• Leadership• Strategy and Tactics• Evolution of Naval Doctrine
Background
How did we get there?
• Slavery– 95% in south, 1/3 of total southern population
• States Rights• Sectionalism• Tarrifs• Election of 1860
Slavery
• Dispute between slave and free states over status of western territories.– Missouri Compromise - 1820.– Kansas-Nebraska Act - 1854.– Dred Scott Decision - 1857.
Total population 22,100,000 (71%) 9,100,000 (29%)
Free population 21,700,000 5,600,000
Slave population, 1860 400,000 3,500,000
Soldiers 2,100,000 (67%) 1,064,000 (33%)
Railroad length 21,788 miles (35,064 km) (71%)
8,838 miles (14,223 km) (29%)
Manufactured items 90% 10%
Firearm production 97% 3%
Bales of cotton in 1860 Negligible 4,500,000
Bales of cotton in 1864 Negligible 300,000
Pre-war U.S. exports 30% 70
Naval Comparison
A Navy Divided
David Glasgow FarragutDavid Dixon PorterJohn EricsonJohn DahlgrenCharles WilkesSamuel F. DuPont
Franklin Buchanan
Matthew Fontaine Maury
Raphael Semmes
Balance of Naval Power?
– Naval Yards
– Ship Builders
– Industrial Base
– Number of Ships
– Leadership
Common Operational Heritage
• War of 1812 — Coastal defense and commerce raiding:– Fighting from an inferior position against an enemy
that has “command of the sea”.
• 1815-1846 — Global deployments:– Protection of American maritime commerce overseas.
• 1846-1848 — Mexican-American War– U.S. Navy controls the seas throughout the war.
– Ports established on the Pacific Coast.
Naval Comparison
• The Confederate Navy– Inferior naval strength.– U.S. Navy traditions prior to the Mexican-American War -
Defensive.• Coastal defense. • Commerce raiding (Guerre de course).
• The Union Navy– Superior naval strength built up throughout the war.– Royal Navy traditions and U.S. Navy traditions in the
Mexican-American War - Offensive.• Establish control of sea lines of communication.
– Blockade of enemy coast.– Power projection through amphibious assault.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy for the North
• Keep Great Britain truly neutral
• Reconcile the blockade of Southern ports with British freedom of trade.
• Problem: Strong pro-Confederacy sentiment in important segments of British policy-making elites.
Diplomacy for the South
• Win British recognition and naval aid.– Problems:
• War is viewed as a rebellion - not a conflict between sovereign states.
• Outcome of the war is uncertain.• Diplomatic inexperience and a weak State
Department.• Fallacy of the "King Cotton" thesis. • Slavery
• 1861- The “Trent Affair”• Union Navy violates neutral rights of British ship.
King Cotton
• Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina, 1858:– “Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword,
should they make war on us, we could bring the whole world to our feet... What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years?... England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her save the South. No, you dare not to make war on cotton. No power on the earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King.”
King Cotton
• 60% of US Exports• Southern plantations generated 75% of
the world's cotton supply
Outcome of Diplomacy
• Ultimately a Failure• Naval Agent James Bulloch gets that aid
– Commerce raiders (Alabama, Florida, Shenandoah)
– Blockade Runners– Laird rams (clearly warships; blockade breakers)
• Battle of Antietam (September 1862), Emancipation Proclamation, and Charles F. Adams’ protests end aid.
Strategy
Union Naval Strategy
• Part of General Winfield Scott’s master “Anaconda Plan” for victory.
• Blockade the entire Confederate coast.– Capture Southern ports for coal, water, food: bombardment and
amphibious assaults.– Union regarded privateers as pirates– Declaration of 1854 (which the US had refused to sign) said
privateering was illegal
• Control of Mississippi River.– Vital line of communication for Confederacy.– Cut off Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.
• Riverine operations in western areas.– Combined Army-Navy operations against Confederate forces.
• Union Army -- Capture Confederate capital at Richmond.
Naval Administration in the North
• Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles
• Rapid and massive ship-building program.– Only 42 ships at the beginning of the war.– 264 commissioned by December, 1861
• Convened Ironclad Board, August 1861, to combat Virginia
UnionSecretary
of theNavy
Gideon Welles
ConfederateSecretary
of theNavy
Stephen Mallory
Confederate Naval Strategy
• Part of overall strategy of “Attrition Warfare”.– Army will defend territory and threaten Washington.
• Coastal defense:– Army forts and new naval weapons systems.
• Blockade-running:– Attempt to continue commercial trade with Europe.– Operations hurt by Southerners’ desires for luxury goods.
• Union blockade’s increasing effectiveness increases profits.
• Commerce raiding:– Successful cruises divert Union ships from blockade duty.– Privateers (1861):
• Declaration of Paris - 1856.• Unable to secure prize courts (sovereignty problems).
Naval Administration in the South
• Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory
• Confederacy issues letters of marque to privateers.
• Attempts to use new technology to gain advantage.– Conversion of older ships to armored
“ironclads”.– Re-emergence of the ram as a naval weapon.
Naval Administration in the South (cont’d)
• James Bulloch attempts to gain British aid.• Coordinates construction of warships in
Great Britain.– Questions of legality for a neutral power
(Great Britain)• Antietam (September 1862), Emancipation
Proclamation, and Union protests end aid.
Course of the War: 1861
• 4 Feb 1861: Confederacy Established, – One quarter of the U.S. Army—the entire garrison
in Texas—was surrendered in February 1861 to state forces by its commanding general, David E. Twiggs, who then joined the Confederacy.
• Lincoln refuses succession, calls for 75K volunteers
• South embargos cotton• 1st Bull Run• 40% of total engagements in VA and TN
1862.
• McClellan, Peninsula Campaign• Lee’s first invasion of the North• Antietam• Chancellorsville• New Orleans Falls
1863
• Gettysburg & Vicksburg• Chattanooga
1864
• Grant elevated to overall command– Sherman in the South & West– Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley
• Grant’s overland Campaign– Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor– Siege of Petersburg
• Atlanta falls, Sherman marches to the Sea• Lincoln defeats McClellan for re-election
1865
• April 1st Lee evacuates Petersburg and Richmond
• Sherman marches north through the Carolinas
Conclusions
• Decline of U.S. Merchant Marine due in large to the obsolescent sailing vessels used.
• Northern success in application of British-like offensive naval warfare PLUS the failure of Southern commerce raiding to win the war at sea begets the QUESTION:– Will American naval officers still regard commerce
raiding as the proper strategy in time of war ???????
• The “Alabama Claims” cause a lasting diplomatic debate with Great Britain.
Conclusions
• Union blockade sets a precedent that that Woodrow Wilson finds inconvenient in 1914-1917.
• Joint Navy-Army Operations reach an unprecedented level of high efficiency on the Mississippi River and in the second amphibious landing at Fort Fisher, North Carolina, closing down the confederacy’s last open port supporting R. E. Lee’s Army.
