DECEMBER 1ST
In his second annual report, Seceretary of the Navy Gideon Welles informed President Lincoln: "We have at this time afloat are progressing to rapid completion a naval force consisting of 427 vessels...armed in aggregate with 1,577 guns, and of the capacity of 240,028 tons...The number of persons employed on board our naval vessels, including receiving ships and recruits, about 28,000, and there are not less than 12,000 mechanics and laborers employed at the different navy yards and naval stations."
This was an extremely fast build-up from the Navy at the onset of the war.
Wilmington, North Carolina's Lt. Maffitt, commanding the CSS Florida wrte that the Alabama and his ship were the only two cruisers in the Confederate Navy and that the Federals would gladly sacrifice fifty armed ships to eliminate them.
Rear Admiral Du Pont wrote that English officers captured on blockade-runners say Charleston, SC, is stronger than Sebastobol (considered the strongest defensive fortifications ever built during the Crimean War). But they had also said that about New Orleans.
DECEMBER 3RD
USS Cambridge captured schooner J.C. Roker off the coast of North Carolina with a cargo of salt. Later this day, it captured the schooner Emma Tuttle off the Cape Fear.
USS Daylight, captured the British b-r attempting to run a cargo of salt into Wilmington.
The Wilmingtom Blockade Is Improving. --Old B-Runner
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