navl operation amer cival war
"NAVAL OPERATIONS DURING THE CIVIL WAR" At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, there was little reason to suspect that the United States Navy would play a very big role in the war. The Confederate Navy had absolutely no navy, nor did they have the ability to create one. The south did not contain a single plant that could create a marine engine. (Carrison, page #17) The government of the Confederate States got underway in the spring of 1861, totally unprepared from a naval standpoint to uphold the independence it had declared. (Confederate Forces Afloat, page #1) The Confederacy lacked the adequate means to conduct an offensive of defensive war. (http://sunsite.unc.edu/ page 1a) They needed ships to defend its long coastline and inland waterways, to carry war to its northern shores, or to conduct the foreign trade, vital to its existence. To this bleak outlook was added but limited hope to acquiring or constructing a navy. Nevertheless, inspired determination and ingenuity evinced particularly by the more than 300 able officers who resigned from the United States Navy to support the southern cause. These men culminated in the rapid appearance of many varied types of forces afloat under the Confederate flag. (http:/
As the war went on, the confederacy created a better defense for their major ports, inland waterways, and the south's vast coastline. The echoes from that day were said to be heard around the world. On March 9, 1862, the Virginia (Merrimac) came out for more sport only to see two eleven inch guns and eight layers of one inch armor. The union effectively blocked the building of Confederate Warships in Great Britain through their diplomacy. On August 15, 1864 Admiral David Farragut led a squadron into a mine-infested Mobile Bay with the battle cry: "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Five months later, on January 15,1865, Federal forces stormed and captured Fort Fisher, N. The union, however, did not have the size to pull off an operation of this magnitude. The Confederacy would set debris or ships, at strategic points up in the inland waterways, like behind a bend in the river an iron warship would be waiting to attack. edu page #2a) Also, the states that seceded automatically took with them the naval forces they had already accumulated. The Union used these vessels more readily because of the materials and factories that were established in the north. edu/war/) The Southern States being born without a navy and never able to develop a fleet that could compete with the growing navy of the United States had a hard time defeating the United States at sea.
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