Campaign for the Confederate Coast

Campaign for the Confederate Coast PDF

Author: Gil Hahn

Publisher:

Published: 2021-06-19

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9781734953701

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The Federal blockade of the Confederate coast during the American Civil War (1861-1865) did not cause the ultimate Federal victory, but it contributed to that victory to a significant degree. In this highly informative book, readers will learn the story of blockade running from a nuanced, all-points-of-view perspective. Without recounting hundreds of encounters between pro-Confederate blockade runners and Federal blockading forces, it traces the ebb and flow of events as the U.S. Navy, blockade runners, and foreign governments (primarily the British) all pressed for advantage. At first unable to detect blockade runners, the Federals developed tactics that made them increasingly effective at making captures, although they did not eliminate blockade running altogether until they captured the principal Confederate ports. And although blockade running sustained the Confederates' ability to continue the battle for four years, the effect of this economic warfare substantially weakened the armies upon which the Confederate assertion of independence rested.

Strangling the Confederacy

Strangling the Confederacy PDF

Author: Kevin Dougherty

Publisher: Casemate

Published: 2010-04-14

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1935149504

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A historian and Citadel tactical officer examines the Civil War’s naval conflicts to shed new light on the Union’s vital yet overlooked Anaconda campaign. A selection of the Military Book Club. While the Civil War is mainly remembered for epic land battles, the Union waged an equally important campaign at sea—dubbed “Anaconda”—to gradually deprive the South of industry, commerce, and resources. The Rebels responded with fast ships called blockade runners that tried to evade the Yankee fleets, while at the same time constructing fortifications that could protect the ports themselves. Ultimately, it was this coastal conflict that brought the Confederacy to its knees. In Strangling the Confederacy, historian and Citadel tactical officer Kevin Dougherty examines the Union’s naval actions from Virginia down the Atlantic Coast and through the Gulf of Mexico. The Union’s Navy Board leveraged superior technology, including steam power and rifled artillery, in ways that rendered the Confederate coastal defenses nearly obsolete. But when the Union encountered Confederate resistance at close quarters, the tables were turned—as in the failures at Fort Fisher, the debacle at Battery Wagner, the Battle of Olustee, and in other clashes. Offering a unique perspective, Dougherty concludes that, without knowing it, the Navy Board did an excellent job at following modern military doctrine. While the multitude of small battles that flared along the Rebel coast have been overshadowed by the more titanic inland battles, in a cumulative sense, Anaconda—the most prolonged of the Union campaigns—spelled doom for the Confederacy.

Cottonclads!

Cottonclads! PDF

Author: Donald Shaw Frazier

Publisher: State House Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9781886661097

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A detailed account of the innovative and daring tacticat of the Confederates as they boldly attacked the Union fleet to lift the Federal blockade of Texas.

Now for the Contest

Now for the Contest PDF

Author: William H. Roberts

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780803238619

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In a detailed examination of the Civil War at sea, the author of Civil War Ironclads describes the conflict in the context of three campaigns, as well as how both sides mobilized and employed their resources for the war.

War on the Waters

War on the Waters PDF

Author: James M. McPherson

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2012-09-17

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0807837326

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Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war's naval campaigns and their military leaders. McPherson recounts how the Union navy's blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war's early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation. Commerce raiders sank Union ships and drove the American merchant marine from the high seas. Southern ironclads sent several Union warships to the bottom, naval mines sank many more, and the Confederates deployed the world's first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the war's most important strategic victories--as an essential partner to the army on the ground at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher, and all by itself at Port Royal, Fort Henry, New Orleans, and Memphis.

Reluctant Rebels

Reluctant Rebels PDF

Author: Kenneth W. Noe

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2010-05-14

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9780807895634

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After the feverish mobilization of secession had faded, why did Southern men join the Confederate army? Kenneth Noe examines the motives and subsequent performance of "later enlisters." He offers a nuanced view of men who have often been cast as less patriotic and less committed to the cause, rekindling the debate over who these later enlistees were, why they joined, and why they stayed and fought. Noe refutes the claim that later enlisters were more likely to desert or perform poorly in battle and reassesses the argument that they were less ideologically savvy than their counterparts who enlisted early in the conflict. He argues that kinship and neighborhood, not conscription, compelled these men to fight: they were determined to protect their families and property and were fueled by resentment over emancipation and pillaging and destruction by Union forces. But their age often combined with their duties to wear them down more quickly than younger men, making them less effective soldiers for a Confederate nation that desperately needed every able-bodied man it could muster. Reluctant Rebels places the stories of individual soldiers in the larger context of the Confederate war effort and follows them from the initial optimism of enlistment through the weariness of battle and defeat.

Decoying the Yanks

Decoying the Yanks PDF

Author: Champ Clark

Publisher: Time Life Medical

Published: 1984

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

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"Stonewall" Jackson's troops pose a threat to Washington, D.C.

Florida Civil War Blockades

Florida Civil War Blockades PDF

Author: Nick Wynne

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2014-02-18

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1614233918

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Florida was the third Southern state to secede from the United States in 1860-61. With its small population of 140,000 and no manufacturing, few Confederate resources were allocated to protect the state. Some 15,000 Floridians served in the Union and Confederate armies (the highest population percentage of any southern state), but perhaps Florida's greatest contributions came from its production of salt (an essential need for preserving meat and manufacturing gunpowder), its large herds of cattle (which fed two southern armies), and its 1500 mile shoreline (which allowed smugglers to bring critical supplies from Europe and the Carribean). Florida in the Civil War: Blockaders will focus on the men and ships that fought this prolonged battle at sea, along the long and largely vacant coasts of the Sunshine State and on Florida soil. The information will be drawn from official sources, newspaper articles and private accounts. Approximately fifty (50) period photographs and drawings will be incorporated into the text.

Jeb Stuart and the Confederate Defeat at Gettysburg

Jeb Stuart and the Confederate Defeat at Gettysburg PDF

Author: Warren C. Robinson

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780803205659

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"The Army was much embarrassed by the absence of the cavalry," Robert E. Lee wrote of the Gettysburg campaign, stirring a controversy that has never died. Lee's statement was an indirect indictment of General James Ewell Brown ("Jeb") Stuart, who was the cavalry.

Ironclads and Columbiads

Ironclads and Columbiads PDF

Author: William R. Trotter

Publisher: G.P Publications

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13:

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There was more fighting along the coast of North Carolina then in all other parts of the state combined. The reason for this was simple: there were important strategic objectives to be won along the coast, and they were within easy striking distance of the main federal naval base at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. North Carolina's well protected coastline offered a perfect refuge for privateers who sailed for and captured so many union merchant vessels in the early days of the war that maritime insurance companies in the North went into a panic, forcing the government to mount an expedition against Cape Hatteras, North Carolina's coastal counties, and the state's coastal railroad systems, were vital to the feeding and resupply of Robert E. Lee's Army. And even after the tightening blockade and powerful federal assaults closed off the ports of Charleston, New Orleans, and Mobile, the city of Wilmington continued to provide a haven for the blockade runners. The city eventually became the most strategically important location in the entire Confederacy, more so even than Richmond itself. The campaign's that resulted from this strategic situation are exceptionally interesting since they foreshadow the amphibious campaigns of WW II. There was so much fighting along the sounds and rivers of North Carolina that the U. S. Navy ordered crash courses in those Civil War campaigns when it became involved in riverine warfare during the Vietnam conflict. In these pages, the reader will encounter such men as William Cushing, often referred to as "Lincoln's commando," who led raid after raid deep into Confederate territory and whose bravery was matched by his good luck; and handsome, gallant young William Lamb, a journalist by trade who designed and commanded Fort Fisher, the largest earthwork fortress in the world, and defended it heroically against the mightiest armada the U.S. Navy had ever launched to that point in its history. The story of the coastal war is one of frustration, missed opportunities for both sides, lopsided victories and heartbreaking defeats, illuminated at every turn by flashes of extraordinary bravery and tactical brilliance. This book tells the story in more detail than it has ever been told before.