The Confederate navy undertook two major activities intended to weaken the blockade. First, utilizing an array of technological innovations, the navy tried to protect southern harbors. With technology in rapid flux, Mallory hoped to pit southern ingenuity against northern ships. The navy department had a Torpedo Bureau and a Naval Submarine Battery Service to develop torpedoes (mines). Specially designed fifty-foot-long, cigar-shaped boats called “Davids” carried contact mines at the end of bow-mounted spars. Torpedoes sank or damaged forty-three Union warships. The Confederacy built the world’s first successful submarine, CSS Hunley, which destroyed USS Housatonic off Charleston in February 1864, though Hunley also sank after the explosion. Torpedoes, “Davids,” and submarines induced a well-founded fear in Union naval officers, who approached enemy harbors and river mouths with increasing caution.
The most ambitious effort to utilize new technology was the ironclad program. Prompted by Mallory, the government converted the captured Merrimack into the ironclad Virginia, authorized construction of two ironclads at Memphis and two at New Orleans, and appropriated $2 million to purchase ironclads abroad. The original purpose of the ironclads was to raise the blockade by sinking the Union’s wooden ships and challenging the Federal Navy for control of the southern coast. The Virginia started the process spectacularly. On March 8, 1862, it steamed out of the Norfolk Navy Yard, destroying Cumberland and Congress. Three other Union ships ran aground trying to escape the iron-skinned beast. The day’s events demonstrated that an unarmored ship could not fight an armored one. Fortunately for the Union, it had an antidote. When Welles learned of enemy plans for Merrimack, he appointed an Ironclad Board to study the problem. It recommended that the Navy Department authorize contracts for three different experimental ironclads, one of them designed by John Ericsson and known as Monitor. The Monitor’s most revolutionary feature was a revolving gun turret: Only the turret, not the ship, need turn in battle. On the night of March 8 Monitor arrived at Hampton Roads, and the next day, when Merrimack ventured forth to finish off the blockading squadron, the world’s first fight between ironclads occurred. Armor against armor produced a tactical stalemate that worked to the North’s strategic advantage. Union ironclads could prevent southern armored ships from directly lifting the blockade. Henceforth, the South primarily used ironclads to supplement harbor defenses, leaving Yankee sea power unchallenged along the seaboard.
The Battle of Hampton Roads touched off a Monitor-mania in the North and convinced the South that it should devote a major portion of its naval energies to acquiring ironclads. However, the Confederate ironclad program was not successful. The effort to buy foreign armored vessels yielded minimal results, and the domestic building program fared little better, as indicated by the fate of the four armored ships authorized in 1861. The two at New Orleans fell into Union hands after Farragut’s triumph, the rebels destroyed one of the Memphis ironclads in August 1862 to prevent its capture, and the Federals captured the other one two years later. Although the South laid down or contracted for about fifty armored ships, only twenty-two ever became operational. Moreover, the South learned that once it built a novel weapon, the North, with its superior industrial capacity, could produce more of them. Before the war ended, the North had seventy ironclads in service.
The other Confederate naval activity was commerce raiding, which the South hoped would hurt the northern economy so badly that Welles would withdraw ships from the blockade to hunt down the raiders. Commerce raiders included privateers, converted merchantmen, and English-built steam cruisers. Davis issued a call for privateers in April 1861, and the government granted the first commission to the schooner Triton on May 10. A few more ships received commissions, but privateering soon ceased, since privateers had no place to take prizes. The blockade closed off southern ports, and the major European nations had signed the Declaration of Paris of 1856, outlawing the practice. The South possessed few merchant ships, but the government refitted about a dozen and commissioned them as regular navy vessels. But far more important than privateers or refitted merchantmen were three specially built cruisers bought in England. The CSS Alabama covered 75,000 miles under sail and steam in less than two years, capturing sixty-four prizes before the Kearsarge sank it. Its sister ship, Florida, took thirty-eight prizes before the sloop Wachusett captured the vessel as it refitted in a neutral port in Brazil. The South purchased the Shenandoah to replace the Alabama, and it practically destroyed the Yankee whaling fleet in the Bering Sea during the summer of 1865 before learning the war was over.
The direct losses from Confederate raiders amounted to about 250 ships, but the indirect costs were much higher. Hundreds of vessels lay in port fearing to put to sea, and shipowners transferred at least 700 more to foreign registry to avoid rebel depredations. Insurance rates skyrocketed for those ships brave enough to put to sea flying the American flag. However, though the commerce raiders practically drove the United States merchant marine from the oceans, they did not affect the war’s outcome. Foreign shipping carried northern commerce, and Welles, recognizing the blockade’s cardinal role in the war effort, refused to divert many ships from the southern coast.
Unable to weaken seriously the blockade with ironclads or commerce raiders, the South relied on blockade-running, an enterprise involving private individuals, foreigners, state governments, and the Confederate government. The allures of the business were adventure, patriotism, and money. Initially blockade-running was dominated by opportunistic captains, primarily interested in profit, who brought in high-value, low-bulk items such as perfume and silk that civilians craved but that did not noticeably help the army. In 1863–1864 the Confederate government began regulating the business by buying blockade-runners, taking control of half the cargo space on other ships, and banning a long list of nonessential goods. As the blockade tightened, blockade-running became more skillful and organized. The British yards at Clydeside built special ships. Fast, drably painted, and burning practically smokeless anthracite coal, they were nearly invisible during nighttime runs in and out of port. The business centered in Bermuda, Nassau, Havana, and the Mexican cities of Tampico and Veracruz, where cargoes shipped in bulk from Europe arrived for transshipment to blockade-runners.
In the deadly hide-and-seek game played nightly along the coast the blockade-runners had great advantages. They chose the port, time, weather, and other circumstances to maximize their chances, and even if spotted they were invariably faster than the blockaders. However, the number of ships penetrating the blockade declined as Federal warships became more numerous and amphibious operations closed Confederate ports, until by 1864 only Mobile and Wilmington remained open. In 1861 nine out of ten blockade-runners were successful, but by 1865 only one out of two made it. These ships brought in impressive quantities of war materials, such as 600,000 small arms, 624,000 pairs of boots, and millions of pounds of lead and meat. Yet this supply line was always tenuous: Union blockaders, storms, mangled propellers, blown cylinders, cracked steam pipes, limited cargo space, and intense competition made it unpredictable and expensive, vastly complicating the Confederate war effort. And, of course, the important question is not how much got through, but did enough? The answer is no. Although leaky, the blockade was one of the Union’s most effective weapons, contributing significantly to the decline in the South’s home-front standard of living and in the Confederate army’s logistical support.
The Sinews of War
By the winter of 1863–1864 the disparity in strength was obvious, as the Union became stronger while the Confederacy, besieged by land and sea, grew weaker. In the North, order and organization replaced the chaos of 1861, manpower and material resources appeared inexhaustible, and industrial and agricultural output increased. In the South, raw materials were difficult to obtain, industrial production lagged, facilities deteriorated, the armies shrank, famine conditions occurred, and defeatism stalked the land. Compared to the Union, the Confederacy faced grave crises in supply, transportati
on, manpower, and home-front morale.
In the North an improvised logistical effort characterized by shortages and corruption soon gave way to a centralized, organized mobilization that abundantly supplied the Army. When the war began, the Army’s rapid expansion overwhelmed the War Department’s supply bureaus. Understaffed, headed by aged officers, dedicated to technical routine, and uncoordinated, the bureaus were initially as much hindrance as help. As expedients the North depended on cities and states to supply the men they raised and turned to foreign markets. Federal, state, and local purchasing agents and private speculators competed feverishly at home and abroad (where they also bid against southern agents), buying an assortment of arms and equipment. With a desperate demand for great quantities, buyers paid too little attention to quality—and to honest dealings. Lobbyists, contractors, and speculators descended on Washington and the state capitals like a cloud of locusts, devouring the national and state treasuries. Although the Army’s unprecedented expansion made some logistical chaos inevitable, Lincoln’s original secretary of war, Simon Cameron, contributed to the frenzy and corruption with deplorably lax administration.
By mid-1862, however, most of the inefficiency and deficiencies had disappeared. Congress established investigative committees to uncover fraud and passed laws regulating the letting of contracts. The forces of centralizing nationalism that brought manpower mobilization under federal control also returned logistical mobilization to the War Department’s Ordnance, Subsistence, and Quartermaster Departments. The personnel in these bureaus expanded dramatically. For example, when Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs assumed office in June 1861, he had only thirteen clerks, but by 1865 he had almost 600 civilian employees. War Department organization also became more elaborate. To use the same example, the Quartermaster Department initially had one subdivision (clothing), but Meigs created eight more, dealing with specialized logistical functions such as forage and fuel, barracks and hospitals, and wagon transportation. At a higher administrative level Stanton established a War Board composed of the bureau heads and chaired by Major General Ethan Allen Hitchcock, whom Lincoln and Stanton appointed as their personal military adviser. Acting as an embryonic American-style general staff, the board facilitated logistical coordination. Although it soon ceased meeting formally, Halleck inherited a budding tradition of interbureau cooperation when he became commanding general, which made his task easier. The Union was also blessed with honest administrators in high places, particularly Secretary of War Stanton, who replaced Cameron in January 1862, and Meigs, who spent $1.5 billion and could account for every penny.
Industry responded to the necessity and opportunity presented by the war, quickly converting to wartime production and expanding its output. The war demanded plan, order, and system, transforming what historian Allan Nevins called “a loose, inchoate, uncrystallized society” into an organized one. The war intensified business trends already evident in the antebellum era as industries became increasingly concentrated and coordinated. Truly national industries arose that utilized mass, mechanized production techniques and more sophisticated managerial methods. Without any economic controls, American industry geared up so successfully that foreign purchases ceased in mid-1862, and surpluses rather than shortages became the rule. By the end of 1862 Lincoln believed logistical excess hampered the war effort. “My dear General,” he wrote in exasperation to Banks, “this expanding, and piling up of impedimenta, has been, so far, almost our ruin, and will be our final ruin if it is not abandoned.”
Northern acquisition of weapons exemplified the evolution from hectic improvisation to an efficient system. When the war commenced, the North turned to European markets, buying 738,000 firearms in fifteen months. Most of the foreign weapons were dependable but some were inferior, and agents scouring the Continent paid premium prices for all of them. Meanwhile, the government stimulated the private arms industry by offering profitable contracts, and it increased production at government arsenals. The private and public armaments industries that produced fewer than 50,000 firearms in 1860 turned out more than 2.5 million during the war, and after 1862 foreign purchasing stopped.
While the North’s logistical mobilization expanded, the South’s peaked in early 1863 and then declined. Fundamental interlocking problems beset southern logistics. The Confederacy had few preexisting industries to expand and lacked sufficient raw materials upon which to build an industrial base. The South did have an existing agricultural foundation, dominated by tobacco and cotton. Efforts to convert to grain and meat production did not completely succeed. Northern conquests eroded the South’s ability to make a sustained logistical effort, forcing it to draw raw materials and food from an ever-smaller area. The inability to meet the army’s needs from domestic sources increased Confederate dependence on hazardous blockade-running. Economic difficulties, produced in large part by inflation, crippled both domestic and foreign procurement. Skilled labor remained scarce, and the transportation system faltered, ruining the essential link between procurement and timely distribution. While the North added 4,000 miles of track, increased its rolling stock, and captured or disrupted critical southern railroad lines, the South barely kept a few lines operating by cannibalizing less important lines, and it could not replace worn-out rolling stock. Furthermore, the Union occupied the upper south horse- and mule-breeding region, making wagon transport difficult.
Nothing hurt the supply services as much as the failure of decisive action and hard-headed planning by the Davis administration. The South needed a careful weighing of assets and liabilities, the setting of strict priorities, and centralized direction in order to use its resources efficiently. But Confederate leaders allowed events to control planning, resulting in uncoordinated, tardy, and generally impotent centralization of the logistical effort. The government gave no overall direction to the supply bureaus, which often bid against each other for materials and labor. Davis never permitted the military to utilize the railroads to best advantage and was slow to exert even moderate control over blockade-running. The Confederacy could have developed an extensive trade through Union lines, but the president at first prohibited it and then shackled the trade with so many regulations that it never fully developed. In sum, Davis’s defective supply management made unavoidable problems worse.
The efforts of Lucius B. Northrop, the Commissary General of Subsistence, and Josiah Gorgas, chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, illustrate Confederate problems. In a rich agricultural region like the South, food should have been the least of difficulties. But the North soon overran or isolated its most productive areas, such as Tennessee, and in states remaining under rebel control labor shortages appeared as white men went into the army and slaves fled to Union lines. Farm machinery broke down, with no spare parts available. As Confederate currency depreciated, farmers became less willing to sell, since they rightly believed future prices would be higher. Confronted by massive hoarding, the government resorted to impressment and a tax in kind. The War Department published a price schedule for impressed goods, but the prices were far below prevailing market rates. Under the tax in kind the Subsistence Bureau confiscated one-tenth of a farmer’s produce. The forcible seizures of food caused outraged protests, especially when much of the produce rotted before the transportation system could move it to the army. Evasion and outright resistance became common. In desperation Northrop tried to import meat—a bulky and hence expensive item—adding to the bureau’s financial woes. By the spring of 1863 the food situation was critical. Lee’s pickets along the Rappahannock shouted to their enemy counterparts that they had a new, tough general. When the Yankees asked for his name, the pickets replied, “General Starvation, by God.”
Gorgas performed wonders in arming the South from three sources: Blockade-running, battlefield captures, and domestic manufacturing. He bought blockade-runners for his bureau’s use, importing large quantities of firearms, saltpeter, lead, and percussion caps. Organized battlefield scavenging yielded about 80
,000 weapons during the 1862 spring and summer campaigns alone. But the domestic arms industry was Gorgas’s most remarkable accomplishment, as he expanded or constructed armories, arsenals, and depots throughout the South. Yet shortages prevented Gorgas from doing more. Lack of money retarded the work of his European purchasing agent, Caleb Huse. Minerals remained scarce despite the abilities of Isaac M. St. John, who headed the bureau’s Nitre and Mining corps, which became a separate bureau in April 1863. Charged with finding and developing mineral resources, St. John strove imaginatively to supply them. For example, when Bragg withdrew from Tennessee, losing the mines that produced 90 percent of the South’s copper, St. John salvaged copper from apple-brandy stills. But he could not perform miracles. The scarcity of pig iron, for instance, prevented the South’s largest manufacturing establishment, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, from operating at more than one-third capacity. The loss of a single skilled worker could be disastrous. When Yankee raiders killed John Jones, an expert barrel straightener, the Richmond Armory’s production dropped by 369 rifles per month, and it took several months to train a replacement. Finally, Gorgas wanted to centralize operations at a few secure locations, but the railroads could not haul raw materials or finished products great distances.
If Confederate logistical support diminished after 1863, so did southern armies, and the two phenomena were not unrelated. The “present for duty” total was 253,208 on January 1, 1863, but only 154,910 two years later. Casualties and disease accounted for part of the shrinkage, but two other factors were more important in the Confederate army’s disintegration. The feeble conscription enforcement machinery all but collapsed and was unable to provide a steady flow of new recruits. Meanwhile, the number of deserters, which would total more than 100,000 during the war, increased dramatically. Although the Union Army had twice as many deserters, the effect on the larger Federal force was less severe. To the South the absence of 100,000 men was of paramount importance, especially since the army had to detail men to track down the deserters, further reducing available manpower. Deserters also invariably took their arms and equipment, which the South could ill afford to replace.
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