A Brief History of the United States

by John Bach McMaster

CHAPTER XXX

THE NAVY IN THE WAR; LIFE IN WAR TIMES

THE SOUTHERN COAST BLOCKADE.—The naval war began with a proclamation of Davis offering commissions to privateers, [1] and two by Lincoln (April 19 and 27, 1861), declaring the coast blockaded from Virginia to Texas.

[Illustration: SINKING THE PETREL. Contemporary drawing.]

The object of the blockade was to cut off the foreign trade of the Southern states, and to prevent their getting supplies of all sorts. But as Great Britain was one of the chief consumers of Southern cotton, and was, indeed, dependent on the South for her supply, it was certain that unless the blockade was made effective by many Union ships, cotton would be carried out of the Southern ports, and supplies run into them, in spite of Lincoln's proclamation.

[Illustration: CARTOON PUBLISHED IN 1861.]

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.—This is just what was done. Goods of all sorts were brought from Great Britain to the city of Nassau in the Bahama Islands (map, p. 353). There the goods were placed on board blockade runners and started for Wilmington in North Carolina, or for Charleston. So nicely would the voyage be timed that the vessel would be off the port some night when the moon did not shine. Then, with all lights out, the runner would dash through the line of blockading ships, and, if successful, would by daylight be safe in port. The cargo landed, cotton would be taken on board; and the first dark night, or during a storm, the runner, again breaking the blockade, would steam back to Nassau.

THE TRENT AFFAIR.—Great Britain and France promptly acknowledged the Confederate States as belligerents. This gave them the same rights in the ports of Great Britain and France as our vessels of war. Hoping to secure a recognition of independence from these countries, the Confederate government sent Mason and Slidell to Europe. These two commissioners ran the blockade, went to Havana, and boarded the British mail steamship Trent. Captain Wilkes of the United States man-of-war San Jacinto, hearing of this, stopped the Trent and took off Mason and Slidell. Intense excitement followed in our country and in Great Britain, [2] which at once demanded their release and prepared for war. They were released, and the act of Wilkes was disavowed as an exercise of "the right of search" which we had always resisted when exercised by Great Britain, and which had been one of the causes of the War of 1812.

THE CRUISERS.—While the commerce of the Confederacy was almost destroyed by the blockade, a fleet of Confederate cruisers attacked the commerce of the Union.

The most famous of these, the Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Shenandoah [3] were built or purchased in Great Britain for the Confederacy, and were suffered to put to sea in spite of the protests of the United States minister. Once on the ocean they cruised from sea to sea, destroying every merchant vessel under our flag that came in their way.

[Illustration: SHELL LODGED IN THE STERN POST OF THE KEARSARGE. Now in the
Ordnance Museum, Washington Navy Yard.]

One of them, the Alabama, sailed the ocean unharmed for two years. She cruised in the North Atlantic, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Brazil, went around the Cape of Good Hope, entered the China Sea, came again around the Cape of Good Hope, and by way of Brazil and the Azores to Cherbourg in France. During the cruise she destroyed over sixty merchantmen. At Cherbourg the Alabama was found by the United States cruiser Kearsarge, and one Sunday morning in June, 1864, the two met in battle off the coast of France, and the Alabama was sunk. [4]

OPERATIONS ALONG THE COAST.—Besides blockading the coast, the Union navy captured or aided in capturing forts, cities, and water ways. The forts at the entrance to Pamlico Sound and Port Royal were captured in 1861. Control of the waters of Pamlico and Albemarle [5] sounds was secured in 1862 by the capture of Roanoke Island, Elizabeth City, Newbern, and Fort Macon (map, p. 369). In 1863 Fort Sumter was battered down in a naval attack on Charleston. In 1864 Farragut led his fleet into Mobile Bay (in southern Alabama), destroyed the Confederate fleet, captured the forts at the entrance to the bay, and thus cut the city of Mobile off from the sea. In 1865 Fort Fisher, which guarded the entrance to Cape Fear River, on which was Wilmington, fell before a combined attack by land and naval forces.

ON THE INLAND WATERS.—On the great water ways of the West the notable deeds of the navy were the capture of Fort Henry on the Tennessee by Foote's flotilla (p. 358), the capture of New Orleans by Farragut (p. 361), and the run of Porter's fleet past the batteries at Vicksburg (p. 368).

[Illustration: ONE OF PORTER'S GUNBOATS PASSING VICKSBURG.]

THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC .—But the most famous of all the naval engagements was that of the Monitor and the Merrimac in 1862. When the war opened, there were at the navy yard at Norfolk, Virginia, a quantity of guns, stores, supplies, and eleven vessels. The officer in command, fearing that they would fall into Confederate hands, set fire to the houses, shops, and vessels, and abandoned the place. One of the vessels which was burned to the water's edge and sunk was the steam frigate Merrimac. Finding her hull below the water line unhurt, the Confederates raised the Merrimac, turned her into an ironclad ram, renamed her Virginia, and sent her forth to destroy a squadron of United States vessels at anchor in Hampton Roads (at the mouth of the James River).

[Illustration: MERRIMAC AND MONITOR.]

Steaming across the roads one day in March, 1862, the Merrimac rammed and sank the Cumberland, [6] forced the Congress to surrender, and set her on fire. This done, the Merrimac withdrew, intending to resume the work of destruction on the morrow; for her iron armor had proved to be ample protection against the guns of the Union ships. But the next morning, as she came near the Minnesota, the strangest-looking craft afloat came forth to meet her. Its deck was almost level with the water, and was plated with sheets of iron. In the center of the deck was an iron- plated cylinder which could be revolved by machinery, and in this were two large guns. This was the Monitor [7] which had arrived in the Roads the night before, and now came out from behind the Minnesota to fight the Merrimac. During four hours the battle raged with apparently no result; then the Merrimac withdrew and the Monitor took her place beside the Minnesota. [8] This battle marks the doom of wooden naval vessels; all the nations of the world were forced to build their navies anew.

FINANCES OF THE WAR.—Four years of war on land and sea cost the people of the North an immense sum of money. To obtain the money Congress began (1861) by raising the tariff on imported articles; by taxing all incomes of more than $800 a year; and by levying a direct tax, which was apportioned among the states according to their population. [9] But the money from these sources was not sufficient, and (1862) an internal revenue tax was resorted to, and collected by stamp duties. [10] Even this tax did not yield enough money, and the government was forced to borrow on the credit of the United States. Bonds were issued, [11] and then United States notes, called "greenbacks," were put in circulation and made legal tender; that is, everybody had to take them in payment of debts. [12]

MONEY IN WAR TIME.—After the government began to issue paper money, the banks suspended specie payment, and all gold and silver coins, including the 3, 5, 10, 25, and 50 cent pieces, disappeared from circulation. The people were then without small change, and for a time postage stamps and "token" pieces of brass and copper were used instead. In March, 1863, however, Congress authorized the Issue of $50,000,000 in paper fractional currency. [13] Both the greenbacks and the fractional currency were merely promises to pay money. As the government did not pay on demand, coin commanded a premium; that is, $100 in gold or silver could be exchanged in the market (down till 1879) for more than $100 in paper money.

NATIONAL BANKS.—Besides the paper money issued by the government there were in circulation several thousand different kinds of state bank notes. Some had no value, some a little value, and others were good for the sums (in greenbacks) expressed on their faces. In order to replace these notes by a sound currency having the same value everywhere, Congress (1863) established the national banking system. Legally organized banking associations were to purchase United States bonds and deposit them with the government. Each bank so doing was then entitled to issue national bank notes to the value of ninety per cent [14] of the bonds it had deposited. Many banks accepted these terms; but it was not till (1865) after Congress taxed the notes of state banks that those notes were driven out of circulation.

COST OF THE WAR.—Just what the war cost can never be fully determined. Hundreds of thousands of men left occupations of all sorts and joined the armies. What they might have made had they stayed at home was what they lost by going to the front. Every loyal state, city, and county, and almost every town and village, incurred a war debt. The national government during the war spent for war purposes $3,660,000,000. To this must be added the value of our merchant ships destroyed by Confederate cruisers; the losses in the South; and many hundred millions paid in pensions to soldiers and their widows.

The loss in the cities and towns burned or injured by siege and the other operations of war, and the loss caused by the ruin of trade and commerce and the destruction of railroads, farms, plantations, crops, and private property, can not be fully estimated, but it was very great.

The most awful cost was the loss of life. On the Union side more than 360,000 men were killed, or died of wounds or of disease. On the Confederate side the number was nearly if not quite as large, so that some 700,000 men perished in the war. Many were young men with every prospect of a long life before them, and their early death deprived their country of the benefit of their labor.

DISTRESS IN THE SOUTH.—In the North the people suffered little if any real hardship. In the South, after the blockade became effective, the people suffered privations. Not merely luxuries were given up, but the necessaries of life became scarce. Thrown on their own resources, the people resorted to all manner of makeshifts. To get brine from which salt could be obtained by evaporation, the earthen floors of smokehouses, saturated by the dripping of bacon, were dug up and washed, and barrels in which salt pork had been packed were soaked in water. Tea and coffee ceased to be used, and dried blackberry, currant, and raspberry leaves were used instead. Rye, wheat, chicory, chestnuts roasted and ground, did duty for coffee. The spinning wheel came again into use, and homespun clothing, dyed with the extract of black-walnut bark, or with wild indigo, was generally worn. As articles were scarce, prices rose, and then went higher and higher as the Confederate money depreciated, like the old Continental money in Revolutionary times. In 1864 Mrs. Jefferson Davis states that in Richmond a turkey cost $60, a barrel of flour $300, and a pair of shoes $150. No little suffering was caused for want of medicines, [15] woolen goods, blankets, [16] shoes, paper, [17] and in some of the cities even bread became scarce. [18] To get food for the army the Confederate Congress (1863) authorized the seizure of supplies for the troops and payment at fixed prices which were far below the market rates. [19]

Some men made fortunes by blockade running, smuggling from the North, and speculation in stocks. Dwellers on the great plantations, remote from the operations of the contending armies, suffered not from want of food; but the great body of the people had much to endure.