The South Carolina islands, as described by Jedidiah Morse, “are surrounded by navigable creeks, between which and the mainland is a large extent of salt marsh fronting the whole State, not less on an average than 4 or 5 miles in breadth, intersected with creeks in various directions, admitting through the whole an inland navigation between the islands and mainland from the northeast to the southeast corners of the State. The east sides of these islands are for the most part clean, hard, sandy beaches, exposed to the wash of the ocean. Between these islands are the entrances of the rivers from the interior country, winding through the low salt marshes and delivering their waters into the sounds, which form capacious harbours of from 3 to 8 miles over, and which communicate with each other by parallel salt creeks.” And that will apply to the whole coast.
More than that, in this length of shore line were found 185 harbor and river openings that might be used for the purposes of commerce with the Confederate States. It is also an important fact that these harbor openings were, in almost every instance, too shoal for the ordinary ocean-going cargo ships of that day. If too shoal for a merchantman, they were so for a man-o’-war, and the more intricate and variable the channels the better adapted they were to the purposes of a trade that was to be carried on in spite of the blockade.
To close these 185 harbor openings the government had, on the day the proclamation was issued, twenty-six steamers and sixteen sailing ships in commission. But let not the uninformed reader suppose that such a great fleet as this was at once started off on that duty. There were in the home squadron but five sailing ships and seven steamers, while of these a number were at sea en route from nearby foreign to American ports, and of those actually in the United States harbors but three—the Pawnee, the Mohawk, and the Crusader—were in Northern waters. To close 185 harbor openings the Secretary of the Navy had for the moment just three steamers, the rest of the commissioned fleet being either in the ports of the Southern States or scattered the wide world over. And that is to say, there was for the moment no force adequate to blockade efficiently even the one Southern port of Charleston.
The navy register showed, however, in addition to the forty-two ships in commission, twenty-seven that were lying at the navy yards in ordinary but fit for service. The government had thirty-nine steamers and thirty-four sailing ships that might be brought together in the course of a few months to enforce the blockade of the 185 harbors of the South and keep contraband trade clear of the eleven thousand and odd miles of Southern sea-beaches.
Map Showing Position of
UNITED STATES SHIPS OF WAR
In Commission March 4, 1861.
NOTE:—There is no log book for the John Adams (No. 18) for the year 1861, but it is known that this ship was at Manilla, January 14, 1861, and at Hong Kong, May 1, 1861.
It is worth noting here that when the Navy Department was first considering its lack of ships for the purpose of enforcing the blockade, a consultation was had with a number of the most eminent ship-owners of New York. The leader of these eminent ship-owners, after considering the subject carefully, said to Secretary Welles that thirty sailing vessels would have to be purchased before an actual blockade of the ports could be completed. As a matter of fact, over 600 ships were employed at the end, and even then some blockaders got through.
Gideon Welles.