8/19/2023 0 Comments Civil war union head of navyCritics called it Welles’ “soapbox navy.” The result was a motley assortment that ranged from old sailing ships to New York harbor ferryboats. The Northern navy immediately began building dozens of new warships and purchased hundreds of merchant ships to convert into blockaders by adding a few guns. The first task for Lincoln’s naval secretary, Gideon Welles, was a straightforward, but huge, fill-in-the-blank: acquire enough vessels to make every Southern inlet, port, and bay dangerous for trade. Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory, scrambled to find ships and even took on an offensive task: attacking Union merchant shipping on the high seas. Yet the Confederates needed a navy to break the Union blockade and to defend the port cities. The Southern states had few resources compared to the North: a handful of shipyards, a small merchant marine, and no navy at all. The Union also needed a “brown water navy” of gunboats to support army campaigns down the Mississippi River and in Northern Virginia. The task was daunting the Southern coast measured over 2,500 miles and the Union navy numbered less than 40 usable ships. His plan was to cut off Southern trade with the outside world and prevent sale of the Confederacy's major crop, cotton. Union President Abraham Lincoln set the Union’s first naval goal when he declared a blockade of the Southern coasts. The naval war was one of sudden, spectacular lightning battles as well as continual and fatal vigilance on the coasts, rivers, and seas. Sailors relax on the deck of the USS Monitor, July 9, 1862.Īs the Civil War raged on the land, the two national navies- Union and Confederate -created another war on the water. Saved Land Browse Interactive Map View active campaigns. Stop the Largest Rezoning in Orange County History.Support the American Battlefield Protection Program Enhancement Act.Protect the Heart of Chancellorsville Battlefield.Save 343 Acres at FIVE Battlefields in FOUR Western Theater States.Help Save 820 Acres at Five Virginia Battlefields.Help Acquire 20 Sacred Acres at Antietam.Help Us Save Hallowed Ground in Tennessee and Kentucky.
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