Confederate Secession and the Naval Question

whitworth

2nd Lieutenant
Joined
Jun 18, 2005
Confederate Secession and the Naval Question

A disaster that just waited to happen!

The Confederacy embarked on a voyage of disaster. They had no navy to speak of; had no prospects of having a needed navy; could not defend many areas because it had no adequate navy.

Because it had no navy of any size the Confederacy lost eastern Maryland; lost the Potomac Bay and adjacent Virginia counties; lost Norfolk; watched an unreachable confederate prison camp on the tip of Maryland, that was just across the widest part of the Potomac River from Virginia; lost easy access from important southern ports because of the blockage by Union ships; lost New Orleans; lost Memphis; lost Fort Donelson; lost Fort Henry; lost any chance to control St. Louis; lost much of northern Mississippi; lost western Tennessee including Nashville; lost Kentucky; lost Missouri; lost the U.S. Territory of New Mexico;lost the western counties of Virginia; saw Sherman's March to the Sea in Georgia. All because in whole and part, the Confederacy could not control the waterways adjacent to these areas. Because the Union controlled the water approaches to the above, it had the superiority in getting more supplies and more military logistics to these areas. The Confederacy could never sustain or control land near navigable waterways, except for a few southern ports,late in the war.

All these things would happen because the Confederacy lacked an adequate navy; both an inland brown water navy and a ocean going fleet that was necessary to win the war.

Britannica saw it early. The British saw overwhelming Confederate naval deficiencies early in the war. The British saw well, their own naval deficiencies and kept out of the war. By early 1862, any hope of Great Britain militarily coming to the Confederates aid, was non-existent.

The Confederate States of America, with so much water on its borders and through its states, and no powerful navy to protect that land for long.
***
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Richmond, February 8, 1862.


"....No treaty of peace can be accepted which does not secure the in-
dependence of the Confederate States, including Maryland, Vir-
ginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, the States south of them, and the
territories of New Mexico and Arizona..."

R.M.T. HUNTER.
***

The Confederate ship of State had conjured up a flight from reality and a plan for its eventual ruin. The Confederacy could never secure much of Maryland, the western part of Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, much of the south along the Mississippi River, the Cumberland River, and the Tennessee River, even the territories in New Mexico and Arizona, because the U.S. had naval superiority and could bring supplies to these areas more often and in greater amount than the Confederate states.
 
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