%463. Capture of the Coast Forts and Waterways.%—Operations along the coast were begun in August, 1861, by the capture of the forts at the mouth of Hatteras Inlet, N.C., the entrance to Pamlico Sound; and by the capture of Port Royal in November. A few months later (early in 1862) control of Pamlico and Albemarle sounds was secured by the capture of Roanoke Island, Elizabeth City, and Newbern, all in North Carolina, and of Fort Macon, which guarded the entrance to Beaufort harbor. McClellan's capture of Yorktown in May, 1862, was soon followed by the hasty evacuation of Norfolk by the Confederate forces, so that at the end of the first year of the war most of the seacoast from Norfolk to the Gulf was in Union hands.
Along the Gulf coast naval operations resulted in opening the lower
Mississippi and capturing New Orleans in April, and Pensacola in
May, 1862.
In April, 1863, a naval attack on Charleston was planned, but was carried no farther than a severe battering of Fort Sumter. In August, 1864, Admiral Farragut led his fleet past Forts Morgan and Gaines, that guarded the entrance of Mobile Bay, captured the Confederate fleet and took the forts. Mobile, however, was not taken till April, 1865, just as the Confederacy reached its end. Fort Fisher, which commanded the entrance to Cape Fear River, on which stood Wilmington, the great port of entry for blockade runners, fell before the attack of a combined land and naval force in January, 1865.
SUMMARY
1. The naval operations of the war opened with the blockade of the coast of the Confederate States.
2. This was necessary in order to prevent cotton, sugar, and tobacco being sent abroad in return for materials of war.
3. As a result blockade running was carried on to a great extent.
4. In order to destroy our commerce a fleet of cruisers was built in England, purchased and manned by the Confederate government. They inflicted very serious damage.
5. But the great event of the war was the battle between the ironclads Monitor and Merrimac, which marked the advent of the iron-armored war ship.