Confederate Shipbuilding in England

From the September 19, 2021, Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) ) "Confederate ships topic for BRCWRT" by George Morris.

Patrick Martin spoke  about Confederate ships made in England before the Baton Rouge Civil War Round Table on August 19.

Martin noted that at the beginning of the Civil War,  the Confederacy  did not have a Navy of facilities to construct and equip warships.  Confederate states did not have the industrial base of the North, so shipbuilding was undertaken on a much smaller scale.

Early in the war, Union General Winfield Scott drew up a strategy known as the Anaconda Plan to restrict  water access to Southern ports, which would  deny the Confederacy   of needed supplies.

This would be the blockade of the Southern coast.

Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory immediately embarked in a program that involved foreign shipyards to build ocean-going ships  to draw the Union Navy away from the South and disrupt international commerce going to the North.

Three commerce raiders were built for the Confederacy  in Liverpool, England.  The most famous of these was the CSS Alabama commanded by Captain, later Admiral, Raphael Semmes, which sank 64 Union vessels until it was sunk by the USS Kearsarge in the English Channel.

Semmes was rescued from the channel by a yacht and taken to England where he was received as a hero.

The other two ships were the CSS Florida and CSS Shenandoah.

After the war, England was made to pay damages by the ships built for the Confederacy.

--Old B-Runner

155 Years Ago: Scott's Anaconda Plan

MAY 2ND, 1861:  General Winfield Scott wrote to President Lincoln suggesting a cordon capable of enveloping the seceded states and noted that "the transportation of men and all supplies by water is about a fifth of land cost, besides the immense savings of time."

On the next day, Scott elaborated further to General George McClellan:  "We rely greatly on the sure operation of a complete blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf ports soon to commence.  In connection with such blockade we propose a powerful movement down the Mississippi to the ocean, with a cordon of posts at proper points ...

"..The object being to clear out and keep open this great line of communication in connection with the strict blockade of the seaboard, so as to envelop the insurgent States and bring them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan."

--Scott's Anaconda Plan.  --Old B-Runner

155 Years Ago: Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan-- Part 2

MAY 2ND, 1861:  This was the heart of the Winfield Scott's celebrated Anaconda Plan which would strangle the Confederacy on all sides.  Control of the sea and inland waterways by the Union was key.

The great strategy for victory was to (a) strengthen the blockade, (b) split the Confederacy along the line of the Mississippi River, and (c) support land operations by amphibious assault, gunfire and transport.

The Union Navy had a key role to play in all of this.

--Old B-R'er