brigadier general ambrose e. burnside ordered the blockade of southern ports during the civil war.
brigadier general ambrose e. burnside ordered the blockade of southern ports during the civil war.
who ordered the blockade of southern ports during the civil war?
brigadier general ambrose e. burnside
the blockade strategy board, also known as the commission of conference, or the du pont board, was a strategy group created by the united states navy department at outset of the american civil war to lay out a preliminary strategy for enforcing president abraham lincoln's april 19, 1861 "proclamation of blockade against southern ports". enforcing this blockade would require the monitoring of of atlantic and gulf coastline held by the confederate states of america, including 12 major ports, notably new orleans and mobile. the group, consisting of: samuel francis du pont, who acted as chairman; charles henry davis; john gross barnard; and alexander dallas bache, met in june to determine how best to cut off maritime transport to and from these seaports. their reports for the atlantic seaboard were used, with modifications, to direct the early course of the naval war. their analysis of the gulf coast was not so successful, largely because the detailed oceanographic knowledge that marked the atlantic reports was not available for the gulf.
blockade strategy board
in april 1861, lincoln announced the union blockade of all southern ports; commercial ships could not get insurance and regular traffic ended. the south blundered in embargoing cotton exports in 1861 before the blockade was effective; by the time they realized the mistake, it was too late. "king cotton" was dead, as the south could export less than 10 percent of its cotton. the confederate navy briefly challenged union naval supremacy by building an ironclad warship known as the css virginia, but the union responded by building its own ship, the uss monitor, which effectively neutralized the confederate naval threat. the blockade shut down the ten confederate seaports with railheads that moved almost all the cotton, especially new orleans, mobile, and charleston. by june 1861, warships were stationed off the principal southern ports, and a year later nearly 300 ships were in service. surdam argues that the blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually ruined the southern economy, at the cost of few lives in combat. practically, the entire confederate cotton crop was useless (although it was sold to union traders), costing the confederacy its main source of income. critical imports were scarce and the coastal trade was largely ended as well. the measure of the blockade's success was not the few ships that slipped through, but the thousands that never tried it. merchant ships owned in europe could not get insurance and were too slow to evade the blockade; they simply stopped calling at confederate ports.
presidency of abraham lincoln