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Chapter 38: review of the work done by the Navy in the year 1863.
A summary of the events of 1863 may serve to keep in mind the details of the several squadrons that were operating along a sea-coast of over 3,500 miles in extent, and in the
Western rivers, a further distance of 4,000 miles. The harbors and indentations of the
Atlantic coast, which afforded refuge for blockade-runners, or points for landing their munitions of war, amounted to at least 180 in number.
Thus the Navy had to guard a line of coasts and rivers over 7,500 miles in extent, a task compared with which the famous blockade of the
French coast by the
British, during the wars with Napoleon, was a mere bagatelle.
Day by day the blockade of the
Southern sea-coast became more stringent, and as Congress was made to feel the urgent appeals of
Mr. Secretary Welles for an increase of the Navy, and became aware that the resources of the enemy diminished in proportion as those of the Navy increased, and realized that, without an adequate force of war-vessels, the
Rebellion would never be conquered, it showed due liberality, and success began to attend the
Federal arms in all quarters.
By increasing the stringency of the blockade, the enemy were driven from the coast, as they realized the uselessness of contending against combined military and naval operations.
The great rivers and their tributaries were no longer safe resorts for marauders, as the capture of the principal towns in the
West, and the occupation of the surrounding country by the
Union forces, had relieved a large number of troops from siege-duty, who could now be employed from
Tennessee to
Louisiana.
The power of the Navy at the same time was largely increased on the
Western rivers by the addition of some 800 guns mounted in war-vessels improvised from merchant steamboats; and these aided in transporting the Army from one point to another where-ever the enemy showed himself.
The operations of the Navy up to the end of the year 1863 had borne with great severity on those who had risen in arms against the
National Government, and the idea has been suggested that the almost superhuman efforts of this arm of the service to crush the
Rebellion has been a serious embarrassment to its advance since the close of the civil war; that the
Southern influence in Congress has, in a great measure, prevented the rebuilding of the Navy and ringing it to a condition befitting a great nation.
Certain it is, the Navy has been brought to so low an ebb that it almost seems as if this state of affairs had been produced by some concert of action.
The best illustration of what the Navy had accomplished up to the close of the year 1863 is afforded by the official reports of the
commanding officers of squadrons and single ships; but, as these cannot be embodied in a narrative of this kind, we must content ourselves with an abstract from the records.
Acting-Rear-Admiral S. P. Lee, in command of the North Atlantic squadron, ably seconded by the zeal of his officers, had penetrated the waters of
Virginia wherever his gun-boats could reach, and had occupied the sounds of
North Carolina to such an extent that the
Confederates could be said to have no foothold in that quarter.
Wilmington, near the mouth of the
Cape Fear River, was really the only point in
North Carolina where the enemy could boast that they had defied the
Federal arms, and this point was found extremely difficult to close owing to two separate entrances to the river some thirty miles apart, both protected by the heaviest description of land defences and obstructed by shallow bars.
These obstacles at the time were
