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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.
Soon after Lincoln announced the blockade, the profitable business of running supplies through the blockade to the Confederacy began. [18] At first the Union was slow to establish its blockade, as the task of patrolling thousands of miles (6,000 km) of coastline was enormous. Many considered the blockade to be little more than a 'paper blockade'.
These vessels were called blockade runners because they had to penetrate the Union's extensive and efficient blockade. The blockade runners operated indirectly from British colonies–such as Bermuda, the Bahamas, or Nova Scotia. Along with vital supplies, the blockade runners brought foreign crews, who poured money into the local economy ...
A Confederate blockade runner at anchor at St. George's, Bermuda. During the American Civil War, blockade running became a major enterprise for the Confederacy due to the Union blockade as part of the Anaconda Plan to cut off the Confederacy's overseas trade.
SS Syren (also spelled Siren) was a privately owned iron-hulled sidewheel steamship and blockade runner built at Greenwich, Kent, England in 1863, designed for outrunning and evading the Union ships on blockade patrol around the Confederate States coastline during the American Civil War.
USS Aries was an 820-ton iron screw steamer built at Sunderland, England, during 1861–1862, intended for employment as a blockade runner during the American Civil War.She was captured by Union Navy forces during the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America, and was commissioned as a Union gunboat.
Wise, Stephen R., Lifeline of the Confederacy: blockade running during the Civil War. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1988. US Navy Department, Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Series I: 27 volumes. Series II: 3 volumes. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1894–1922.
While operating in the Piankatank River on blockade duties on 17 August, William G. Putnam and the ex-ferryboats USS Commodore Jones and USS Commodore Morris sighted a schooner, a canoe, and a launch running the blockade. Men from the steamers manned two cutters, two boats, and a gig and gave chase but soon encountered heavy sniper fire from ...