Primarily a land war?

[wausaubob]

According to naval officer Craig Symonds the US Civil War was primarily a land war. So he said in speech published on Youtube.
While more men were engaged in the land armies, and the land battles produced gruesome carnage, the US navies, on the seas, and on the rivers were producing strategic gains at far less cost in money and lives lost.
Starting at Port Royal in November 1861, and ending at Fort Fisher in January 1865, the US navy achieved its objectives, or assisted the armies in positioning themselves for victory.
By 1861 steamships were generally carrying fewer guns of greater weight. The guns could be smoothbore or rifled, but because of the power of ship, the could be very heavy weapons for the time. While its true that a heavily armed steam sloop could not fight General Lee's army, General Lee and his predecessor, Joseph Johnston also had to avoid fighting near a navigable river where the US navy could participate in the battle.
By June 1862 US navy had recalled and outfitted all the ships and deployed more steamships and steamboats the US had reoccupied Nashville, New Orleans, Pensacola, Norfolk and Memphis. What was left of the Confederacy after staggered on for less than 3 years, due to incredible sacrifices of the Confederate soldiers and citizenry. But why the fighting continued cannot be explained by any rational argument.
The building capacity of US industry even in the 1850's exceeded 500,000 tons per year. Almost all that capacity was located in the northern Atlantic ports and the cities that remained in the US along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
Starting in June of 1862, the US navy reeled off a string of impressive accomplishments starting with the sinking of the Alabama and ending with the US capture of Fort Fisher. Throughout 1864 almost every US operation had a naval component and was supplied in whole or in part by steamships and steamboats. Yes, even General Thomas' army gathering and re-equipping itself at Nashville was supplied in part of steamboats plying the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers.
Unless the skilled commerce raider Raphael Semmes was sinking 200,000 tons of shipping per year, the losses to the US were going to barely more than was lost to storms and obsolesence every year,
But that's not the story that gets told. It may be because the navy did its job so well that many of its fights were clearly lopsided. As to the blockade, the tedium of watching punctuated by the occasional chase and capture hardly compares with the image of the dashing smuggler, who was usually English by the way, running fashions, liquor and weapons into the Confederacy.
While the land battles of the US Civil War were dramatic, did they really matter? Virtually every major city and town in the Confederacy was either an ocean port or a river city. New Orleans was both.
After Nashville and Memphis were retaken by the Unted States, the Confederacy was not going to be able to gather enough horses and mules, and move enough hay, oats and other forage to maintain 19th century armies. It was only a matter of time until the Confederate armies began to shrink and lose mobility.
Primarily fought on land? According to the contemporary newspapers and magazines, true enough. But the historical record might reconsider and decide that most powerful weapon of the US Civil War was a steam sloop going into battle with its rigging down and its sides plated with bolted on anchor chain.
And Merry Christmas.

 

[Specster]

According to naval officer Craig Symonds the US Civil War was primarily a land war. So he said in speech published on Youtube.
While more men were engaged in the land armies, and the land battles produced gruesome carnage, the US navies, on the seas, and on the rivers were producing strategic gains at far less cost in money and lives lost.
Starting at Port Royal in November 1861, and ending at Fort Fisher in January 1865, the US navy achieved its objectives, or assisted the armies in positioning themselves for victory.
By 1861 steamships were generally carrying fewer guns of greater weight. The guns could be smoothbore or rifled, but because of the power of ship, the could be very heavy weapons for the time. While its true that a heavily armed steam sloop could not fight General Lee's army, General Lee and his predecessor, Joseph Johnston also had to avoid fighting near a navigable river where the US navy could participate in the battle.
By June 1862 US navy had recalled and outfitted all the ships and deployed more steamships and steamboats the US had reoccupied Nashville, New Orleans, Pensacola, Norfolk and Memphis. What was left of the Confederacy after staggered on for less than 3 years, due to incredible sacrifices of the Confederate soldiers and citizenry. But why the fighting continued cannot be explained by any rational argument.
The building capacity of US industry even in the 1850's exceeded 500,000 tons per year. Almost all that capacity was located in the northern Atlantic ports and the cities that remained in the US along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
Starting in June of 1862, the US navy reeled off a string of impressive accomplishments starting with the sinking of the Alabama and ending with the US capture of Fort Fisher. Throughout 1864 almost every US operation had a naval component and was supplied in whole or in part by steamships and steamboats. Yes, even General Thomas' army gathering and re-equipping itself at Nashville was supplied in part of steamboats plying the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers.
Unless the skilled commerce raider Raphael Semmes was sinking 200,000 tons of shipping per year, the losses to the US were going to barely more than was lost to storms and obsolesence every year,
But that's not the story that gets told. It may be because the navy did its job so well that many of its fights were clearly lopsided. As to the blockade, the tedium of watching punctuated by the occasional chase and capture hardly compares with the image of the dashing smuggler, who was usually English by the way, running fashions, liquor and weapons into the Confederacy.
While the land battles of the US Civil War were dramatic, did they really matter? Virtually every major city and town in the Confederacy was either an ocean port or a river city. New Orleans was both.
After Nashville and Memphis were retaken by the Unted States, the Confederacy was not going to be able to gather enough horses and mules, and move enough hay, oats and other forage to maintain 19th century armies. It was only a matter of time until the Confederate armies began to shrink and lose mobility.
Primarily fought on land? According to the contemporary newspapers and magazines, true enough. But the historical record might reconsider and decide that most powerful weapon of the US Civil War was a steam sloop going into battle with its rigging down and its sides plated with bolted on anchor chain.
And Merry Christmas.

Definately primarly land but the Navy put a big dent in Confederate operations and complimented the army in many instances....especially helping Grant on the Vicksburg Campaign...et al

 

[Lubliner]

Merry Christmas.

The navy and the railroads helped mobilize the army for the battles, helped feed and support them up and down the rivers and along the coast. The blockade was also running down smugglers. But without the naval support for transportation inland, I believe more tactical in scouting operations, where railroads were always at risk from attack inland, how one could separate and divide the forces to show which was greatest, only with overlays can it be seen by association. Otherwise, it was an entire operating mechanism that functioned as one whole unit. If one miscarried, it harmed the rest. This is very true of the confederate downfall.
Lubliner.

 

[Stryker65]

I daresay that the Union could not have captured the main rivers (Tennessee, Mississippi) without the Navy. Sure, they could maybe have reduced the river cities, like Memphis or Columbus, by siege, but the Navy definitely sped up the process.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

Undoubtedly, the Civil War was primarily a land war. The historical record supports this assertion.

It was always going to be 'boots on the ground' that were needed to finally defeat the Confederacy.

The numerical and technological superiority of the Federal Navy generally prevailed in its limited engagements with inferior Confederate naval forces (e.g. at New Orleans, Memphis, Mobile). However, thought the Federal Navy performed a more significant role in mobilizing the Army and in substantially weakening Southern logistics, over the course of the war. In particular, the Navy's vital contribution included blockading Southern coastal ports, launching joint amphibious operations (in tandem with the Army) and transporting troops and supplies over extensive distances.

In the western theater, the Federal Navy enabled Union forces to utilize the inland river systems to conquer the Upper South and the Mississippi River, which was accomplished by the end of 1863. Not only did this split the Confederacy into two but it paved the way for the Union Army's drive inland into the deep South.

Without this effective role carried out by the Navy in the war, thought this primarily land-based conflict could have lasted a lot longer.

 

[Pollaco]

Some "lopsided" battles were made even more so due to gunboats.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

Some "lopsided" battles were made even more so due to gunboats.

Can recall Confederate combatant accounts of the demoralizing effects of shells fired by the Union gunboats 'Tyler' and 'Lexington' during the night of April 6/7 at Shiloh.

 

[RedRover]

Many years ago, after reading Alvah Hunter's book "Year on a Monitor" (The USS Nahant), with all of the wonders of it and its sister ship's design, construction, operation, and major combat modifications made at Sea (new armored pilot houses, case-mate base rings, etc. and all kinds of upgrades after every combat) and their delivery of fire, it struck me as the perfect account of how the US Navy's growth and improvement, and technological innovations, much less the industrial strength of the Union, in the war years made a Confederate victory impossible, no matter how many battles they won on land. And that from a ship's BOY.

And even among the lesser fourth class klunkers, their operations on the remote coasts frequently included many bold landings, bombardments, etc. which stretched the Confederate front lines from the Potomac all they way to the Rio Grande. In a sense, the Union armies in Virginia and the west were also subjected to a defense of the North. But on the coasts it was all about attacking the Confederacy where they could make little in the way of counterattack. And when they did... enter the Monitors again...

 

[Pollaco]

Just ask Tom Green.

 

[7thWisconsin]

It was not a deep water war, really, but I´d argue that the Civil War was very much a riverine naval war. The combined arms actions in the Western theater significantly contributed Federal success. With the rivers, you can move men and supplies long distances quickly and cheaply. In the East, although it was attempted, a riverine war was not really necessary because the objectives could be reached by land. The United States had the largest brown water navy in the world.

 

[Old Soldier]

I think most would be surprised at just how much the Navy contributed. It wasn't so much what victories they achieved, but what they prevented. Most of the direct action was river/estuary/coastal and the early Mississippi river action was by army gunboats which were transferred to the Navy in 1862. Their crowning achievement was the Blockade of the South which seriously damaged the Confederate economy. It never got the publicity of the land battles or the inshore battles for most blockade-runner interceptions were 'mere' skirmishes, often out of sight. It was not very effective to start with, but as the number of ships available grew, it reduced any blockade-running to a trickle and caused serious problems in re-supply and exports for the Confederacy. The Confederates main source of money was through the export of cotton and by limiting this, the Navy ensured their funding was seriously damaged.

 

[jackt62]

A major component of the Union's struggle to vanquish the Confederacy were joint army-navy and amphibious operations. Some of the most important were assaults on Roanoke Island, New Orleans, Forts Henry and Donelson, Island No. 10, the Vicksburg and Red River campaigns, and the capture of Ft. Fisher. Not to mention the large logistical support the navy provided in transferring the AotP to and from the Virginia peninsula in 1862. While the land war was paramount overall, the navy probably does not get the full credit it deserves for its role.

 

[wausaubob]

Undoubtedly, the Civil War was primarily a land war. The historical record supports this assertion.

It was always going to be 'boots on the ground' that were needed to finally defeat the Confederacy.

The numerical and technological superiority of the Federal Navy generally prevailed in its limited engagements with inferior Confederate naval forces (e.g. at New Orleans, Memphis, Mobile). However, thought the Federal Navy performed a more significant role in mobilizing the Army and in substantially weakening Southern logistics, over the course of the war. In particular, the Navy's vital contribution included blockading Southern coastal ports, launching joint amphibious operations (in tandem with the Army) and transporting troops and supplies over extensive distances.

In the western theater, the Federal Navy enabled Union forces to utilize the inland river systems to conquer the Upper South and the Mississippi River, which was accomplished by the end of 1863. Not only did this split the Confederacy into two but it paved the way for the Union Army's drive inland into the deep South.

Without this effective role carried out by the Navy in the war, thought this primarily land-based conflict could have lasted a lot longer.

Its a good story. But isn't there a bit of denial mixed into that way of telling it? How was the Confederacy run a war economy once it began to lose its ports and river cities, especially New Orleans? The Confederacy had a very limited agricultural sector with respect to horses, mule and forage. Once the US occupied a large portion of Tennessee, the Confederacy was at an extreme disadvantage. For some time they could attempt to access horses from Texas and other western states. But after July 1863 that was almost impossible. So by the Summer of 1863 General Lee realized his only chance to campaign outside of Virginia was when the grass was green and the weather mild. By October 1863 Bragg had won a great tactical victory. But then he was stuck at Chattanooga, without enough wagons and mules to move around the US force and find a river crossing.
Chattanooga illustrates the US advantage. The US had steamboats to ferry Sherman's men across the river. But that was not all. Rosecrans and his engineers built a steamboat construction wharf at Bridgeport and built steamboats there to eliminate the wagons needed to supply the Rosecrans/Thomas army.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

No doubting the manpower and economic disparities that existed between sections at the start of the war and which was exacerbated by the Confederacy's loss of its ports and river cities (especially New Orleans) early in the conflict.

Despite the South's relative limitations in military resources, the North had to overcome the problems posed by the 'tyrannies of distance' in this predominantly land-based war. Significantly, the North also better managed its numerical and technological superiority in military resources through planning joint operations to take advantage of the geographic realities (e.g. the use of steam-powered gunboats in brown waterways to support ground actions or as a prelude to Army occupation of ports) that enabled its deep penetration of the Confederacy.

Thought the Civil War evidenced a notable step-up in the evolution of joint warfare in US military operations.

 

[Rhea Cole]

All wars are land war. Name a major fleet battle that occurred in the middle of the ocean… don't bother, there aren't any. The reason being that there is nothing to fight for a thousand miles away from any port.

Naval warfare is not a video game where vessels fight just for the joy of it. Naval power exists to do two things:

One: is to keep supply lines open.

Two: is to interdict & blockade opponent's supply lines.

The littoral & brown water US fleet created to fight the Civil War was ideally suited to accomplish these two tasks. The inability of the CSA to mount even a token challenge was an existential failure. A 19th Century country that couldn't defend its supply line or blockade enemy ports could not win.

Indeed, the Civil War was a world wide logistics war. It was a manufacturing revolution war. It was a rail road war. It was a riverine war. It was a littoral war… on & on. The land war was, in fact, a crazy quilt of elements without which the history would have been different.

 

[Grant's Tomb]

It was also an aerial war as well even though the Union Army Balloon Corps was only used for aerial reconnaissance purposes from October 1861 until the summer of 1863 when the Corps was disbanded following Thaddeus Lowe's resignation. The use of balloons as an air-war mechanism was first recorded in France by the French Aerostatic Corps at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794 during the War of the First Coalition that was the world's first balloon unit, primarily for reconnaissance

 

[wausaubob]

No doubting the manpower and economic disparities that existed between sections at the start of the war and which was exacerbated by the Confederacy's loss of its ports and river cities (especially New Orleans) early in the conflict.

Despite the South's relative limitations in military resources, the North had to overcome the problems posed by the 'tyrannies of distance' in this predominantly land-based war. Significantly, the North also better managed its numerical and technological superiority in military resources through planning joint operations to take advantage of the geographic realities (e.g. the use of steam-powered gunboats in brown waterways to support ground actions or as a prelude to Army occupation of ports) that enabled its deep penetration of the Confederacy.

Thought the Civil War evidenced a notable step-up in the evolution of joint warfare in US military operations.

Except in a much competitive war, once the British navy gained the upper hand against Napoleon's French navy, wasn't Napoleon left with some very bad options? He lost of lot resources occupying Spain, while the British were able to funnel men and support into Spain and Portugal over water. Than Napoleon attempted to subdue Russia, avoiding St. Petersburg and the Baltic Sea, and met with disaster.
The Confederacy narrowly avoided a disaster at Gettysburg. However its shrinking armies could barely hang on for the next 21 months.

 

[wausaubob]

All wars are land war. Name a major fleet battle that occurred in the middle of the ocean… don't bother, there aren't any. The reason being that there is nothing to fight for a thousand miles away from any port.

Naval warfare is not a video game where vessels fight just for the joy of it. Naval power exists to do two things:

One: is to keep supply lines open.

Two: is to interdict & blockade opponent's supply lines.

The littoral & brown water US fleet created to fight the Civil War was ideally suited to accomplish these two tasks. The inability of the CSA to mount even a token challenge was an existential failure. A 19th Century country that couldn't defend its supply line or blockade enemy ports could not win.

Indeed, the Civil War was a world wide logistics war. It was a manufacturing revolution war. It was a rail road war. It was a riverine war. It was a littoral war… on & on. The land war was, in fact, a crazy quilt of elements without which the history would have been different.

Naval power was already very important during the ARW. That's how a British army was forced to surrender the colonialists: because the French navy appeared off the coast of Virginia and cut of the retreat route of the British. By the time steam engines and rifled artillery are added to warships, their power is multiplied.
All these land battles that we have learned about, did they matter? And Tennessee illustrates the situation. Once Fort Donelson fell, the Confederates had to flee Nashville to save anything. By October 1863 steamboats entering from the Ohio River could make it to either Nashville of Johnsonville, depending on water levels and Confederate artillery. The US had steamboats both above and below the shoals and falls.
There could be a war in which naval forces don't matter. I think the Prussian/Franco war might be described that way. But the primary part of the Confederacy was surrounded by water. And the three western states, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, were accessible by rivers and by the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
How was the Confederacy build weapons without cities? Were they going to build ironclads in cornfields as @DaveBrt noted? And if they could buy weapons how were they going to get the guns, powder and percussion caps into the field without open ports?
And if railroads were important, the Confederacy had virtually no locomotive construction capability and only a few places with the roundhouses and tool shops necessary to maintain locomotives. Without ships and access to New York and Liverpool, the sand was running through the glass for all the Confederate locomotives.

 

[wausaubob]

It was not a deep water war, really, but I´d argue that the Civil War was very much a riverine naval war. The combined arms actions in the Western theater significantly contributed Federal success. With the rivers, you can move men and supplies long distances quickly and cheaply. In the East, although it was attempted, a riverine war was not really necessary because the objectives could be reached by land. The United States had the largest brown water navy in the world.

Correct. And the US ship and boat building capacity was barely strained. The economy did not need very more canal and river boats, because the railroads were taking over for the movement of freight and men within the safety zone of the US paid labor states.
That was the point that Lincoln was probably trying to make in the advanced report of the 1860 census. The US could build 500,000 tons of shipping per year, and that was 6 years prior to the start of the all out shooting in the Civil War. The losses in combat and to the Confederate raiders barely mattered. And the number could not have been lost on the British, who saw how easily their own neutrality laws could be evaded by building unarmed ships.

 

[wausaubob]

It was not a deep water war, really, but I´d argue that the Civil War was very much a riverine naval war. The combined arms actions in the Western theater significantly contributed Federal success. With the rivers, you can move men and supplies long distances quickly and cheaply. In the East, although it was attempted, a riverine war was not really necessary because the objectives could be reached by land. The United States had the largest brown water navy in the world.

Its the cost advantage that matters. Steamboats and steamships were even more efficient than railroads. And if one combatant achieves naval dominance, the water routes are not subject to interdiction and raiding. A few armed vessels patrol the route, and that is sufficient.