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The Union blockade in the American Civil War was a naval strategy by the United States to prevent the Confederacy from trading.. The blockade was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in April 1861, and required the monitoring of 3,500 miles (5,600 km) of Atlantic and Gulf coastline, including 12 major ports, notably New Orleans and Mobile.
Proposed by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized a Union blockade of the Southern ports and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by a vociferous faction of Union generals who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the ...
By 1863 Union attacks along the Confederate coast made running the blockade more difficult, forcing blockade runners to use other ports besides those at Wilmington, Charleston and Savannah. After the capture of New Orleans in 1862 the ports in Mobile and Galveston were the next choice, used in conjunction with Havana as a transfer point.
Forts Monroe and Wool gave the Union forces control of the entrance to Hampton Roads. The blockade, initiated on April 30, 1861, cut off Norfolk and Richmond from the sea almost completely. [18] To further the blockade, the Union Navy stationed some of its most powerful warships in the roadstead.
The Atlantic Blockading Squadron was a unit of the United States Navy created in the early days of the American Civil War to enforce the Union blockade of the ports of the Confederate States. It was formed in 1861 and split up the same year for the creation of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron.
The three major tasks of the Confederate States Navy during its existence were the protection of Confederate harbors and coastlines from outside invasion, making the war costly for the United States by attacking its merchant ships worldwide, and running the U.S. blockade by drawing off Union ships in pursuit of Confederate commerce raiders and ...
On April 16, 1861, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln ordered a blockade of Confederate ports to weaken the Confederacy's economy. [5] Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet realized the Confederates could not compete economically with the Union because cotton exports served as the primary economic driver of the Confederate economy.
On May 31, Union cavalry seized the vital crossroads of Old Cold Harbor while the Confederates arrived from Richmond and from the Totopotomoy Creek lines. Late on June 1, two Union corps reached Cold Harbor and assaulted the Confederate works with some success. By June 2, both armies were on the field, forming on a seven-mile (11 km) front.