The
Union Blockade, or the
Blockade of the South, took place between 1861 and 1865, during the
American Civil War, when the
Union Navy maintained a strenuous effort on the
Atlantic and
Gulf Coast of the
Confederate States of America designed to prevent the passage of trade goods, supplies, and arms to and from the Confederacy. Ships that tried to evade the
blockade, known as
blockade runners, were mostly newly built, high-speed ships with small cargo capacity. They were operated by the British (using
Royal Navy officers on
leave) and ran between Confederate-controlled ports and the neutral ports of
Havana,
Cuba;
Nassau, Bahamas, and
Bermuda, where British suppliers had set up supply bases.
President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the blockade on April 19, 1861. His strategy, part of the
Anaconda Plan of General
Winfield Scott, required the closure of 3,500 miles (5,600 km) of Confederate coastline and twelve major ports, including
New Orleans, Louisiana, and
Mobile, Alabama, the top two
cotton-exporting ports prior to the outbreak of the war, as well as the Atlantic ports of
Richmond, Virginia,
Charleston, South Carolina,
Savannah, Georgia, and
Wilmington, North Carolina. To this end, the Union commissioned 500 ships, which destroyed or captured about 1,500
blockade runners over the course of the war; nonetheless, five out of six ships evading the blockade were successful. However...
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