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United States History One Scott Abel Nov.

28, 2006

Honor code:

Fuller, Howard. John Ericsson, the Monitors, and Union Naval Strategy. International Journal of Naval History. Vol. 2. No. 3. (2004): 1-21 Weddle, Kevin. The Blockade Board of 1861 and Union Naval Strategy. Civil War History. Vol. 48, No. 2. (2002): 123-142

The United States Navy played an important role in the victory of Union forces during the American Civil War through strategy and technology. Howard Fullers article stresses the importance of the trinity of the naval architect John Ericsson, the Union Naval Strategy, and the U.S.S. Monitor. Fuller places emphasis on the importance of the U.S.S. Monitor and John Ericsson in the American Civil War. Kevin Weddle writes on how the establishment of the critical Union Blockade came to be and how a few brilliant men helped transform an unprepared navy into an excellent weapon against the rebels. Howard Fuller and Kevin Weddle agree that the Union Navy gained victory over the Confederacy, because of naval strategy, superiority in material, and brilliant leadership. Both authors write about the same time period and locations. They study the years of the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865. The locations of the blockades and naval action include the 3,500 miles of coastline from Virginia to Texas. Also, the Mississippi River and the many rivers diverting from it play an important role towards the Union victory. However, there are also locations that are important in the North, such as Washington D.C. and the many Navy Yards where the Union Navy was being developed. Howard Fuller focuses most of his effort on the development of the Monitor and the Union ironclads. The US Navy Yards laid down eighty two armored warships and of that, sixty-one had turrets during the Civil War. The U.S.S. Monitor was the prototype of a new generation of steam-powered warships that were clad in iron and had its cannons in a rotating turret. New classes of ironclads would be built in the image of the U.S.S. Monitor. Fuller explains how the blockade of Southern ports was the centerpiece to Union Naval Strategy and how closing their ports would prevent them from exploiting

their lucrative cotton trade with nations like Great Britain. Fuller also writes about the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory, who believed the ironclads were the only way to beat the Union Navy. For the Union, the ironclads were costly and time consuming to make. It was initially estimated that the cost of twenty ironclads would be $16,530,000, but it was later revised to cost $10 million. Ericssons design is acknowledged as superior to anything any other contractor could produce, despite its expensiveness. For example, it provided not only more armor, but for an upgrade from 11-inch guns to 15-inch guns. These ironclads were needed for the assault on New Orleans to suppress fire from forts guarding the city. These ironclads futuristic design struck fear into the hearts of the defenders of New Orleans and improved the Navys Public Relations. Fuller surprisingly only briefly mentions the duel at Hampton Roads and puts more emphasis on the fact that the U.S.S. Monitor was on patrol duty at least a month before the engagement. Fuller concluded that the amphibious assaults along the eastern coast were generally a waste of resources. Instead, priority was placed on the Armys progress on land. Fuller also concluded the blockade was the main theme surrounding Union Naval Strategy and that many ironclad assaults were just distractions for the Navy and helped with the nations morale. He states the main purposes of the ironclads were to deter, and if necessary, act as coastal defense against foreigners, use against Confederate ships, and assault Confederate coastal defenses. Fuller goes into detail about the Union assaults on Confederate fortresses in Mobile Bay, around Charleston, and in North Carolina. His main sources include issues of period Scientific American, Ericssons letters, and books

by James Tertius DeKay and John Niven. He came to his conclusion by looking at the ultimate results of each attack on major Confederate ports on the East Coast. Kevin Weddle starts his article off with the bombardment of Ft. Sumter and Lincolns Proclamation of Blockade against the enemies of the Union. He explains how overwhelming the task was to establish a blockade and how the Blockade Board came about. The Blockade Boards task was to purchase, commandeer, build, and move almost any suitable vessel to maintain the blockade. Of course, the Navy still kept some vessels to guard American commercial interests abroad. Weddle explains how the Navy needed small, maneuverable, shallow draft, and fast vessels to stop blockade runners, so the Navy commandeered some vessels from the U.S. Coastal Survey. Weddle places great significance on the superintendent of the U.S. Coastal Survey, Alexander Bache, who was also member of the Blockade Board. Bache and his organization gave critical information on the details of the American Coastline during this time, such as information on depth of the water and the tides. Weddle believed it was Bache who came up with idea to form a Blockade Board. The important members that belonged to the Blockade Board or were involved in its creation engaged in strategic planning for the war. These men included Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Vasa Fox, Alexander Bache, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Samuel DuPont, Henry Davis, John Barnard, and General Joseph Trotten. Weddle gives a short biography of DuPont, Henry Davis, Major John Barnard, and Bache. The board had to consider things such as how to supply the fleet, how to follow international law, and how to divide the command responsibilities.

Weddle concludes with the legacy of the Blockade Boards recommendations. His first comment on its legacy is the success in dividing the two fleets into a Northern Squadron and Southern Squadron. Another piece of the boards legacy was requesting the captured islands to act as supply bases for the Union Navy. These actions include the capture of Cape Hatteras in August, 1861, the capture of Port Royal and Ship Island in November 1861, and the capture of Fernandina in March of 1862. He concludes that the boards recommendations lead to the creation of other organizations such as the Board of Naval Examiners, the Board for Purchase of Vessels, the Board on Ironclad Vessels, and the Board on Claims, which all greatly contributed to the war effort. Weddle writes that the greatest legacy of the Blockade Board was the development of the blockade, which gave the Union a decisive strategic advantage over the Confederates. Weddle comments on how the Navy took three weeks to create a solid strategy that was kept throughout the war, while the Army took three years to develop an effective strategy, despite its superior resources. Weddle reaches these conclusions through much research and work. He was thorough his research of the blockade and the men surrounding it. Weddle especially looked through letters that were written by men like DuPont, Bache, and Welles. He also searched through official government documents, such as statements to the Senate and official Coastal Survey reports. He even had access to the dairy of the Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Other sources include books that had been written before him about the Union Navy, Union strategy, and people involved with the Union Navy such as DuPont and Welles from various authors. He comes to his conclusions by looking at the boards recommendations and checked how vital each one was to the war effort.

Both authors convinced my already biased views that the Union Navy played a decisive role in shortening the war and was a factor that tilted the war in the Norths favor. Fuller explained the importance of the blockade a little better than Weddle did, because he emphasized the importance of exporting cotton and trade to the Southern States. Neither side looked specifically enough at naval action that was the result of these policies. In order to do this they could have check ships logs and letters from individuals aboard these vessels. I would have been more interested if they analyzed the seizure of these coastal areas. Furthermore, some people may still be suspicious of the effectiveness of the Union Blockade, because of Confederate blockade runners. Also, the authors could have written more about the economic effects of the blockade and how it hampered Southern war efforts. There were a significant number of primary sources in both essays, but Weddle used more primary sources that Fuller. There is still another element to the war that neither author talks much about, the use of the fresh water Navy in the Mississippi Delta, which played a crucial role in the war. Fuller fails to mention how important morale was to the Union towards the last two years of the war while discussing the Union naval raids. These articles have a lot of similarities about them, because they were writing from a similar perspective. One example is that they are both written from the Union perspective and relatively little attention is given to the Confederate Navy. Both men realize that large, slow, heavy draft vessels were not the only ships required to maintain the blockade. They recognized the importance of smaller vessels that were required to go into shallow waters at high speeds to chase Confederate Blockade Runners. According to Fuller and Weddle, it was essential for the Union Navy to establish supply bases along

the Confederacys coastline. The need for coaling stations and supply bases resulted in the seizure of islands such as Ship Island, Fernandina, and Port Royal. Both authors write on the attacks on key coastal locations, such as Ship Island on the Gulf Coast and how these assaults relied on the Union Army to take and hold land with the Navys assistance. Fuller and Weddle write about the fall of New Orleans in April 1862, because it was the largest city in the Confederacy and a strategically important location. However, both acknowledge the limits of the Navys capabilities in large part due to the underwater mine or torpedo which played a role at Mobile Bay and Charleston. DuPonts and the Navys limits were reached when they failed to capture the city that started the rebellion, Charleston, South Carolina. Despite this failure, both authors remind the reader that the Army of the Potomac failed for years to make progress against the Confederacy. These writers agree that certain organizations such as the Board on Ironclad Vessels played an important role in Union Navy. The authors and I agree fully on the concept that there has not been enough writing and research on the significance of the Union Navy and the blockade that played an important role in the American Civil War. We also agree that the Union Navy played a critical and often under valued role during this turbulent time in American History. Fuller differs from Weddle in that Fuller focused more on the mechanics of the ironclads and individual actions. Fuller briefly mentions the duel between the two ironclads U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia and mentions the actions of the four ironclads at Mobile Bay. In this engagement, three ironclads steamed towards the enemy, resulting the lead ironclad sinking due hitting a mine and forcing the surrender of the C.S.S. Tennessee. Weddle more fully examines the personalities and the relationships

between the members of the Blockade Board and Fuller writes about John Ericsson. Furthermore, Fuller writes more on the construction in the Navy Yards, but Weddle just mentions the need for the construction of more vessels. Fuller writes more about foreign politics and the need to deter the empires of Great Britain and France from getting too involved in the American Civil War, whereas Weddle wrote little about external political pressures of the war. Fuller also writes significantly more about the Confederate Navy than Weddle does, because Fuller focused part of his article on the necessity of the ironclad to fight Confederate warships. Fuller writes about how Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory ordered the salvaging of the U.S.S. Merrimac and how it was converted into the ironclad, C.S.S. Virginia. While Howard Fuller focuses more on John Ericsson, the U.S.S. Monitor, and Union Naval Strategy, Kevin Weddle focuses on the Blockade Board of 1861. Neither forgets to mention the importance of the blockade, but both focus on different details involving Union Naval Strategy. Both authors wrote about a critical subject in American that too often goes unnoticed by historians.

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