Strangling the Confederacy: Coastal Operations in the American Civil War

By Kevin Dougherty

A selection of the Military Book Club
While the Civil War is mainly remembered for its epic battles between the Northern and Southern armies, the Union was simultaneously waging another campaign—dubbed “Anaconda”—that was gradually depriving the South of industry and commerce, thus rendering the exploits of its field armies moot. When an independent Dixie finally met the dustbin of history, it was the North’s coastal campaign, as much as the achievements of its main forces, that was primarily responsible.

Strangling the Confederacy examines the various naval actions and land incursions the Union waged from Virginia down the Atlantic Coast and through the Gulf of Mexico to methodically close down every Confederate port that could bring in weapons or supplies. The Rebels responded with fast ships—blockade runners—that tried to evade the Yankee fleets, while at the same time constructing formidable fortifications that could protect the ports themselves. While Union troopships floated offshore, able to strike anywhere, mobile Confederate forces were kept at hand near crucial points, albeit in smaller numbers, to resist Federal irruptions into their homeland.

In the final analysis, the Union’s Navy Board, a unique institution at the time, undertook the correct strategy. Its original decision to focus on ten seaports that had rail or water connections with the Confederate interior—from Norfolk to Charleston to Mobile to New Orleans—shows that the Navy Board understood the concept of decisive points. In a number of battles the Federals were able to leverage their superior technology, including steam power and rifled artillery, in a way that made the Confederate coastal defenses highly vulnerable, if not obsolete. On the other hand, when the Federals encountered Confederate resistance at close-quarters they often experienced difficulties, as in the failures at Fort Fisher, the debacle at Battery Wagner, the Battle of Olustee, and in other clashes.

What makes this book particularly unique is its use of modern military doctrine to assess and analyze the campaigns. Kevin Dougherty, an accomplished historian and former career Army officer, concludes that, without knowing it, the Navy Board did an excellent job at following modern strategic doctrine. While the multitude of small battles that flared along the Rebel coast throughout the Civil War have heretofore not been as well known as the more titanic inland battles, in a cumulative sense, Anaconda—the most prolonged of the Union campaigns—spelled doom for the Confederacy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Casemate
• Release date: Apr 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9781935149507

Kevin Dougherty

Kevin Dougherty is the Assistant Commandant for Leadership Programs at The Citadel and the author of several books including The Campaigns for Vicksburg, 1862–1863 (Casemate 2011), which illustrates leadership principles through historical narrative.

Reviews for Strangling the Confederacy

[setnahkt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mostly derivative, although there are some insights of interest. Author Kevin Dougherty’s endnotes and bibliography is short of primary sources on long on Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton, so we’ve seen all this stuff before; yet it’s somewhat useful to have it broken out of general discussion of the war. When the war started, the Lincoln administration quickly created a Navy Board, composed of USN Captain Samuel DuPont, Coast Survey Superintendent Professor A.D. Bache, Army engineer and fortress specialist Major John Barnard, and USN Commander Charles Davis. The Board quickly issued recommendations – the Navy should seize key locations along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to establish coaling stations for blockading vessels. The USN quickly adopted most of the Board’s recommendations and seized Hatteras Inlet in North Carolina, Port Royal in South Carolina, and Ship Island off the coast of Louisiana.
Dougherty doesn’t mention a key diplomatic situation here; the Union initially referred to a “blockade” of the south. Secretary of State Seward quickly pointed out that a “blockade” was defined by international law as affecting a foreign nation, and by declaring a “blockade” Lincoln was implicitly recognizing the Confederacy as a nation. Lincoln quickly acknowledged by declaring the various ports in the south as “closed” rather than “blockaded”; nevertheless the situation was always called a “blockade” by the north and the naval forces involved were the North and South Atlantic Blockading Squadrons and the East and West Gulf Blockading Squadrons.
Dougherty notes the Confederacy initially put way too much trust in the efficacy of forts against naval vessels. The doctrine of the time is ship guns had to outnumber fort guns by at least 4 to 1 to have a chance, but that was developed before the days of steam power and rifling. The Federal navy quickly obliterated Fort Hatteras at Hatteras Inlet and Fort Beauregard at Port Royal, and just steam past Forts St. Philip and Jackson guarding New Orleans. However, Federal exploitation of their coastal enclaves was also inhibited by doctrine; Dougherty notes that Union forces never advanced, even though a relatively short march from New Bern, North Carolina, could have cut the Weldron Railroad that served Richmond. Dougherty attributes this to lack of initiative and poor cooperation between the Army and Navy; however I propose a better reason is that the Federals simply didn’t realize it was possible at this stage of the war. It wasn’t until Grant bypassed Vicksburg to come at it from the rear that Sherman realized it was possible to operate in the deep south without a supply line. No Federal general in 1861 or 1862 would have risked a force without a supply line and flank guards.
As the war went on, the south got better at coastal defense and administrators in the north began expecting more from the Navy than was possible. In particular, the his failure to capture Charleston led to the dismissal of Flag Officer Du Pont; he was accused of having “the slows”, like McClellan, but despite pointing out repeatedly that the situation at Charleston was different than New Orleans or Port Royal – steaming past the outer forts wouldn’t work because it would just leave the fleet trapped between them and the inner forts, and the forts themselves were no longer brick and masonry that shattered under cannon fire but sand and earth that absorbed shells. Charleston wasn’t taken until Sherman arrived from the land side.
There’s no capsule biography to give Dougherty’s background; he makes a couple of errors of fact, describing the Sharps as a “repeating rifle” and calling the New Ironsides a monitor. There are photographs of various personalities mentioned. The maps aren’t really adequate, generally too large a scale to illustrate what’s discussed in the text. As mentioned, the bibliography is mostly secondary sources. I can give it a half-hearted recommendation; worthwhile from the library or if you are a compulsive Civil War book collector.