History ETDs

Publication Date

8-3-1970

Abstract

The role of the United States Navy in the Civil War has been the subject of many books for over one hundred years. Authors writing in the last century lacked many of the papers, diaries and other personal accounts which have since come to light. Also, many wrote with a distinct Northern bias and lacked objectivity. Towards the end of the last century, works appeared covering the entire history of the United States Navy and therefore devoted insufficient space on the Civil War. During the twentieth century, many books have been published dealing with particular aspects of the Navy during the Civil War, covering limited operations or specific periods of time. A few have tried, unsuccessfully, to cover naval operations for the entire war in one volume. An attempt at a multivolume series in the early 1960's left much to be desired. On 4 March 1861, the Navy owned ninety vessels. It had 42 ships in commission, manned by 7,600 sailors, excluding officers and Marines. By December, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles reported that 264 vessels were in service or under construction. The role and operations of the United States Navy during the Civil War was a complex and tremendous undertaking. As explained by Welles, it had to blockade all the ports along the Southern coast including the occupation and defense of the Potomac River, organize combined naval and military expeditions against the Confederacy and cooperate with the Army on the Western rivers, and pursue Confederate privateers and commerce destroyers which sought to destroy Northern shipping and weaken the blockade. To try to cover this subject in a single volume does little justice to the Navy. The war at sea was more than the chase of the Sumter or the battle at Port Royal, South Carolina. It involved severe hardships and risks to the men who served on the blockade as well as substantial problems which the Navy had never faced before. The thousands of men who served at sea and those who gave their lives in that bloody conflict deserve to have their story told in greater detail than has previously been done. With this in mind, this writer has chosen the first year of the Civil War. This work covers the condition of the Navy in 1861 and the steps taken by it to meet its responsibilities in that year, the operations of the various squadrons and cruisers which served along the coast, rivers and the brood expanse of the oceans, and the problems faced by the service as it hurriedly tried to meet the demands required of it to fight a large scale war. The use of seapower in that conflict helped in part to defeat the South and preserve the Union. How it was used and how effectively it was applied is the subject of this work.

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Degree Name

History

Department Name

History

First Committee Member (Chair)

George Winston Smith

Second Committee Member

Gunther Eric Rothenberg

Third Committee Member

William Miner Dabney

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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