Gideon Welles.
Secretary Welles went energetically to work. Vessels in foreign waters were called home, the keels of new craft laid in northern dockyards, and stout merchant ships bought and fitted up for the rough usage of war. By the end of 1861 the navy numbered 264 vessels. At the close of the war it had 671 ships, carrying 4,610 guns and 50,000 sailors.
The first work—a gigantic one—was to blockade the southern ports. This involved the constant patrolling of more than 3,000 miles of dangerous coast, indented with innumerable inlets, sounds, and bays. But within a year a fairly effective blockade was in force from Virginia to Texas, drawn tighter and tighter as the navy increased in size. The effectiveness of the blockade is sufficiently proved by the dearth at the South. The South had cotton enough to sell—$300,000,000 worth in gold at the end of the war—and Europe was greedy to buy; but she could not get her wares to market. Fifteen hundred prizes, worth $30,000,000, were taken during the war.
The details of the blockade must be left to the reader’s imagination. Important as the work was, it was comparatively monotonous and dull—ceaseless watching day and night in all weather, week after week and month after month. Now and then the routine would be broken by the excitement of a chase. A suspicious-looking sail would be spied in the offing and pursued, perhaps, far out to sea. Again, the low hull of a blockade-runner would be seen creeping around a point and heading for the open sea. Or on a still night the throb of engines and the splash of paddle-wheels would give warning that some guilty vessel was trying to steal into port under cover of darkness. Then came the flare of rockets to notify the rest of the blockading fleet, the hot pursuit with boilers crowded to bursting, the boom of the big guns fired at random in the dark, and the exultation of a capture or the disappointment of failure.
Blockade-running became a regular business, enormously profitable. Moonless and cloudy nights were of course the most favorable times for eluding the blockade; but the swift steamers, sitting low in the water and painted a light neutral tint, could not easily be detected by day at a little distance, especially as they burned smokeless coal. The bolder skippers would take all chances. Under cover of a fog they would steal into or out of harbor at risk of going aground, or set sail boldly on a bright moonlight night, when the blockaders would naturally relax their vigilance a little. Occasionally some dare-devil would crowd on all steam and dash openly through the sentinel fleet, trusting to speed to escape being hit or captured. When hard pressed, the blockade-runner would beach his craft, set it afire, and take to the woods. At the close of the war thirty wrecks of blockade-runners were rotting on the sands near Charleston Harbor.
In connection with the blockade a number of naval expeditions were sent against various points along the coast. In October, 1861, a fleet under Flag-Officer Dupont, consisting of a steam frigate, a dozen or more gunboats, with numerous transports and coaling-schooners, and carrying 12,000 troops under General T. W. Sherman, set sail from Hampton Roads for Port Royal, S. C. After a stormy passage the fleet anchored off the harbor on November 4th. On opposite sides of the entrance, two and a half miles apart, stood Forts Walker and Beauregard—strong earthworks, mounting one 23 the other 20 guns, and garrisoned by 1,700 men. The 7th dawned bright and clear, the sea smooth as glass. About nine o’clock the bombardment began. The fleet steamed slowly round and round in an ellipse between the forts, each vessel as it came within range pouring in its fire, then passing on and waiting its turn to fire again. The cannonade was concentrated upon Fort Walker. The moving ships offered a poor mark to the fort, while the aim of the fleet was very accurate, covering the gunners with sand and dismounting the guns. After four hours’ action Fort Walker was evacuated, and soon Fort Beauregard also in consequence.
Map of Hampton Roads.
Port Royal was the finest harbor on the coast, and was of great value to the navy all through the war as a repair and supply station. Dupont sent out expeditions, and by the end of the year had possession of a large part of the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. In the following spring expeditions from Port Royal regained Fernandina and St. Augustine on the Florida coast. In April Fort Pulaski, a strong brick work at the mouth of the Savannah River, was reduced by eleven batteries planted on a neighboring island, its surrender completing the blockade of Savannah.