"US blockade how strong was it." Topic

once again in the brit/acw scenarios. You have to find away that the brits fight the americans alone.
if the brits and the french say the confederacy is legit, the war is over doesn't matter who has how many ships or how good they are. and i am pretty sure the french would jump in as soon as the brits hinted they would go to war in any scenario before about jan 63.
and after that you would be hard pressed to get the brits into the war short of an american attack.

once you can get the scenario generated, then we can worry about russians defending the west or how many ships the brits can get to the US or if 10000 canadians can take maine in the winter

Interestingly the matter that was having most discussion in the House of Commons outside of the Civil War, was the uprising in Poland in January 1863.

Not much call for Royal Navy intervention in that one I would think!

The wars were referred to as the Kaffir Wars. Just because racist South Africans tend to refer to all black people as Kaffirs doesn't mean that Britain wasn't fighting Southern African peoples who were called Kaffirs. Vide link and link and PDF link
As far as USN cruisers and commerce raiders having an impact, look at my previous post regarding supplies of coal. Sailing vessels acting as commerce raiders wouldn't get very far.

BTW – Where's the coal on the West Coast of the America's in 1862?

In Brtish colliers.
You can just buy the stuff, you know.
-Kle.

I have to say from my reading, whether Britain could have easily won the naval war or not, at the time both North and South thought they would have done.

Pat

Just a word of support for Chouan.

Kaffir in this context is an alternate name for Xhosa people of Southern Africa and gave the name to the wars they fought for 100 years with the white settlers.

These are also known as the Cape Frontier Wars but Kaffir Wars shows up in British Regimental histories and can be found on Victorian monuments to individual soldiers in churches all over Britain.

Unfortunately in South Africa, especially during the apartheid era it took on an a presence and usage equivalent to 'The N Word' but it does have a separate historical context unlike that terminology.

I have to say from my reading, whether Britain could have easily won the naval war or not, at the time both North and South thought they would have done

And that Folks, is the entire point!

Thanks for that clarification and support Trajanus. I was aware of the word's usage in S.Africa and it's offensive nature in S.Africa, but I wasn't aware, until it was picked up on, that the word might be classed as offensive elsewhere.

Klebert L Hall 28 Feb 2012 5:29 a.m. PST

BTW – Where's the coal on the West Coast of the America's in 1862?

In Brtish colliers.
You can just buy the stuff, you know.
-Kle.

*NJH: In 1862 I'm sure the Brits could get coal from Newcastle. But how do they get it to the Pacific Theater? The West Coast of the Americas was still quite sparsely settled by European standards. Hauling coal to the Pacific would have meant a long supply line for the Brits. Screws or no, going around South America was still very dicey. Did the Brits have coal mines among its colonies in strategically advantageous locations? Maybe they could have hauled it across Central America, but then the "vomito negro" becomes a problem. (And, I don't mean the band.)

A couple more points regarding the Brits busting the blockade.

During the ACW Britain and France were not the best buddies everyone thinks. The Brits built Warrior in response to the French La Gloire. Britain and France were involved in a Naval arms race. Neither would have sent their valuable ironclads to the Americas only to leave the channel ownership to the other.

In conjunction with the distrust of one another, neither could afford to send their ironclads out of European waters. Why? There were no graving docks in their overseas holdings large enough to house the ironclad ships, with their easily fouled iron hulls.

Now, back to the central question of blockade busting. I've read all the posts, but have seen no persuasive evidence that either the French or the British were politically willing to trust one another.
I've also not seen any persuasive evidence that the logistical issues created by the needed deployment of the ironclads could be solved in a timely fashion.
Also, given the domestic political race for military fiscal conservation I see no persuasive evidence to suggest that the Brits could change policy in a timely fashion.

And, for European involvement to be timely and effective, it would need to arrive in 1861 or 1862. By the time we get to the campaigning season of 1863, the South is already losing the strategic war. Southern manpower reserves are nearly spent and the South cannot match the Union – Army for Army. In the Summer of 63, the loss of Vicksburg and the defeat at Gettysburg, mean the South can't win militarily. Neither France nor Britain were going to shed their blood to save a moribund Confederacy.

Just a few thoughts.

Canada was British, which included western Canada. Coal was imported into western Canada, by ship, throughout our period. There would be no reason why the RN couldn't have used that coal.

And, for European involvement to be timely and effective, it would need to arrive in 1861 or 1862

Totally correct, by the Fall of 63 its all over but the dying.

Warrior was not really a response to Gloire, but Defence was. Despite the "armoured frigate" nomenclature applied to both, Warrior and Black Prince, followed up by Achilles, Agincourt, Minotaur, Northumberland and Bellerophon were not designed primarily for fleet/ squadron actions, although they of course could do as such. They were designed as solitary hunters able to take on any warship in the world and with the speed and range (bearing in mind the UKs global base system) to dominate anywhere there was not a major ironclad squadron.

Now Defence, Resistance, Royal Oak, Hector, Valiant etc. were designed for fleet actions in the Channel, Med or in Atlantic waters.

by the fall of `63 its all over but the dying.
A cold & accurate summing up of the next couple years.
Of all the listed British ships can`t see many that could concintrate any effitive firepower if I was the American commander I would `get` the warrior first & let Britian nothing was safe either at sea or in their docks
The British press would toast the Gov`mt

How would you go about "getting" Warrior? With what? USS Kearsage? USS Brooklyn? The US monitors and ironclads weren't capable of fighting at sea, so what would the USNM have to take on Warrior, or Defence or Hector or Valiant or Minotaur or Achilles or Royal Oak or Caledonia or Ocean or…..
What was Warrior's armament?
Would 68pdrs, 7" and 8" rifles be ineffective against unarmoured screw frigates and sloops? I doubt it.

Loath though I am to continue this rather pointless debate on the size of USN assets (Not aiming this at you Chouan) I thought I might put things in a context for those who haven't look things out for themselves yet.

The USS Hartford and her sister ships, which rightly hold an iconic place in the history of the Civil War, was 2,900 tons and had a crew of around 300. For their time and the job they did they were fair size ships of the period.

HMS Warrior weighs 9,200 tons and had a crew of 700, also carries twice as many guns.

For those of you who don't know and think I've lost the plot, I refer to the Hartford in past tense and Warrior in present tense as the latter is still with us in fully restored state and sadly the Hartford is no more.

Unless you count USS Hartford SSN 768 which is a current symbol of how the USN rule the waves much as the Royal Navy did in the 1860's.

Actually that in itself is a point. Its hard to think in these terms if you were born in the last 90 years or so but the United States hasn't always been able to do what it liked, when it liked. Some times those born within its boundaries are inclined to forget this, being born and raised in different times.

Clumsy Metaphor time.

Yeah, but HOW could the 1990's/2000's US army invade and conquer Iraq? Those tanks ran on Petrol, how would they get all that Petrol,to Iraq???? and the Iraqi Tanks were pretty good you know! I just don't believe it happened ONCE, never mind TWICE

Pat

Thanks for that Trajanus; you could add that apart from the armoured ships the RN had nearly a hundred vessels like this one, link apart from well over 100 wooden and composite screw frigates and sloops.
How low are the mighty fallen…..

Yeah, well that's what you get for paying for two World Wars in 25 years! Freedom to be broke and an economy that only works in wartime! :o)

How would you go about "getting" Warrior? With what? USS Kearsage? USS Brooklyn? The US monitors and ironclads weren't capable of fighting at sea …

As long as the Warrior stays out to sea, it's no problem. If it wants to blockade the U.S. it has to come to where the Monitors are.

Don,

There are three different types of blockade none of which are suitable environments for monitors to operate in and even the closest one still wouldn't require coming in close enough.

Take a good look at a selection of Civil War photos of the different classes of monitors – they have no freeboard (height above the waterline) to speak of.

In fact one class was even built with buoyancy tanks like a Sub so they could sink even lower in the water when coming into action.

They would sink in swells a 9,200 ton ship would hardly notice. The original USS Monitor floundered at sea managing to kill 16 of her crew where the Merrimac had failed to kill any!

I know some of the Southern ports had sand bars but the Union still blockaded them without resorting to monitors.

Besides in the scenarios talked about in this thread the British wouldn't be blockading the South anyway.

We should note that Monitors were not used in enforcing a blockade. This was left mainly to wooden ships.

Most of the Monitors (and floating battery New Ironsides) were for the most part concentrated into a striking arm and spent most of the war outside Charleston, with the odd foray elsewhere. Depending when our notional war starts there is likely a single clash of Ironclads.

Jan '62: No US ironclads

Jul '62: Monitor and Galena are in the James River, they get bottled up when Milne strikes Fort Monroe and cornered by HMS Terror in the James.

Anytime in '63: A concentrated squadron of ~ 8-9 Passiacs and New Ironsides is either at Charleston or environs. A particular service squadron of Warrior, Black Prince, Defence, Resistance, Royal Oak and (if really serious) Caledonia, Ocean, Prince Consort and Royal Albert plus some heavy wooden ships hit them.

1864: During 1864 the USN adds 5 Canonicus class and Onondaga to their orbat, and the Dictator and Monadnock are added ca. Sept '64 which are capable of mixing it up out to sea (albeit when calm). The RN has added Achilles, Hector, Minotaur, Prince Albert, Research, Royal Sovereign, Scorpion, Valiant, Wivern and Zealous to their effective list. The imbalance gets worse….

Donlowry, Blockade simply means preventing ships from sailing. The RN blockaded Germany in WW1 simply by existing!
The North's ports would be under close blockade if the RN was patrolling 10-15 miles out, too far for any early USN armoured vessel to sail, and fight, effectively. Even if the USN waited until a day of flat calm, all the RN vessels, which were all far faster and far more manoevreable, would have to do is sail a bit further away until the Passaic, or the Monitor, or whichever began to be affected by the N.Atlantic swell, which exists even on a flat calm, and then they'd have to go back, or they'd go under. They certainly couldn't fight at sea in a swell. Any merchant vessel, or conventional USN vessel would be overwhelmed by the superior numbers, and strength of the vessels that the RN would have had available. The RN vessels wouldn't even need to be using coal most of the time, so conserving fuel, as they were all capable of sailing. The USN armoured squadrons could have "protected" the Chesapeake, or the Hudson, etc, in that they could have caused damage to any RN squadron trying to enter, but the RN wouldn't have needed to. A squadron patrolling off Sandy Hook, Block Island, Cape May and Virginia Beach, and Massachusetts Bay, and the main ports are corked. Smaller squadrons of sloops would keep the US merchant vessels cooped up as well, along the rest of the coast.

Trajanus 01 Mar 2012 3:28 a.m. PST

Loath though I am to continue this rather pointless debate on the size of USN assets (Not aiming this at you Chouan) I thought I might put things in a context for those who haven't look things out for themselves yet.

*NJH: I don't dispute the high probability of a Brit victory standing broadside to broadside in the open sea.

However, I think too many political, economic, and logistical problems fatally mitigate against such an event.

Its worth noting that one of the Passaic's – USS Weehawken, foundered 6 December 1863.

There's no way on God's Earth you would have got me on a monitor in open water, all those guys were bloody heroes, even before they saw a shot fired!

Obviously, Britain had no intention of joining in, and didn't, but this discussion is based, in my understanding, that Britain does join in. In which case the political arguments don't apply. However, there would be no economic or logistical reason why Britain could not have securely blockaded the North.
Essentially, the RN could stuff anything the USN put to sea, and wouldn't need to do anything but exist to effectively blockade the US.

IIRC, some of the later monitors sailed (steamed?) to Cuba at the end of the war, looking for the Shenandoah.

Essentially, the RN could stuff anything the USN put to sea, and wouldn't need to do anything but exist to effectively blockade the US.

Then why didn't the mere existence of the US Navy effectively blockade the Confederacy? As I recall, they had to actually put ships outside the ports to enforce the blockade, and even then many fast blockade runners managed to get in and out.

Also, the U.S. had considerably more industry than the C.S. and a whole continent's resources, so how effective would a blockade of the U.S. have been?

One of the biggest reasons Britain did not intervene hasn't been mentioned: food. Northern Europe had 2 crop failures in 1860 and 61. By the end of 1861, half of Britain's grain was coming from the Union states. And that grain was being carried on British ships that were bringing guns, ammo, and textiles to both sides. Getting that grain to European markets easier was one of the major goals of the Mississippi campaign. Yes, Britain had a world wide empire to draw from, but that empire was not able to supply the mother country with food. Over 2-3 years, resources could have been readjusted like they did with cotton cultivation in Egypt and India. But those lands are usually unable to supply more than subsistence for their own populations. The worker problems from a cotton shortage were child's play compared to the unrest caused by famine. A blockade of the Union coast would have hurt Britain far more than the US.

"Then why didn't the mere existence of the US Navy effectively blockade the Confederacy? As I recall, they had to actually put ships outside the ports to enforce the blockade, and even then many fast blockade runners managed to get in and out."

If you look at my previous post you'll see that I was referring to a blockade of US ports using ships patrolling the approaches to those ports; I meant the RN wouldn't have to do anything more to maintain a blockade, they wouldn't have had to take any ports or enter any ports, so the blockade would continue as long as the RN continued to exist, it would have been the USN that would have to attack the RN vessels for the blockade to be broken, the RN wouldn't need to attack USN vessels in port for the blockade to continue.
Sailing from the US coast to Cuba isn't such a big deal, it is only about 100' from Key West to Havana, and in any case, we're not talking necessarily about a monitor's ability to steam in open sea, more their ability to fight in open sea, and get anywhere near a RN vessel, given their desperately slow speeds and poor handling.

As far as the potential of famine is concerned, Britain imported grain from the US because it was cheaper. If US grain wasn't available import Britain would have imported more expensive grain from elsewhere, it wasn't a question of starvation. In any case, if the US couldn't export grain then the US economy would have been seriously damaged.
Britain's economy at that time was more dependent upon cotton, and with Confederate ports being open, Britain and the CSA could trade with each other with profit to both.

it would have been the USN that would have to attack the RN vessels for the blockade to be broken, the RN wouldn't need to attack USN vessels in port for the blockade to continue.

Oh sure. I thought you were advocating some kind of "fleet-in-being" blockade. But they would have to come close enough that the monitors would be able to get at them. You can't blockade from miles out to sea. Too easy for fast blockade runners to slip through (as the Federals found when blockading Confederate ports).

And if the British wanted to break the Union blockade of Confederate ports they'd definitely have to come to where the Union ships were. Again it depends on when this happens. The longer the war went on the fewer ports the Confederates had and more ironclads the US Navy had.

But I must admit that I'm no naval expert.

Not all Union ironclads were monitors. The New Ironsides and the Galena come to mind. But I have no idea how they stacked up against British and French ironclads of the day.

After September 1862 it was a moot point. There was no way the British would fight for the Confederacy's right to own slaves. But some wargamers are just fascinated by the possibility. No matter how improbable.

In 1865 Davis offered to free the slaves if Britain would just recognize the Confederacy. The British just said, why on earth would we do that when the Union Army is about to accomplish the same thing. So here we go again.

The answer to the original question is, the blockade was strong enough.

"Kiss the West Coast goodbye?" Kiss Canada goodbye. Moot point anyway.

This isn't true. The British, rightly, perceived the Emancipation Proclamation as a cynical attempt to ferment a servile war in the south whilst maintaining slavery in the North. It actually brought the British to the brink of intervening on humanitarian grounds. Fortunately the ploy failed and there was no mass uprising of slaves in the south which would bring in the British.

See link

I'm struggling to see that idea.

If there was cynical attempts afoot they were to create an emancipation that let the Boarder States off the hook (it specifically referenced "slave holding states") and Lincoln included Washington DC in the emancipation so that there would be nowhere in the North holding slaves.

The main cynicism if it be so was that the move was designed to make it impossible for Britain and France to support the South without splitting their own population on the subject.

When in January 1862 US Ambassador to Spain chided Lincoln that hiding anti slavery aims for the war was a mistake Lincoln said:

"You may be right. Probably you are. I have been thinking so myself. I cannot imagine that any European power would dare to recognize and aid the Southern Confederacy if it becomes clear that the Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom."

Lincoln struggled to see it too. Fortunately Seward (of all people!) was a lot smarter than Lincoln and steered US-UK relationships much better than Lincoln did.

Chouan, actually, cotton was declining in importance to the British economy by 1861. Bumper crops in 1859 and 60 had produced a glut of cotton on the world market. The British textile industry was cutting production and closing mills before the Civil War broke out. There was so much surplus cotton, that the South's self-imposed blockade of exports backfired. The industry continued to run for well over a year consuming the surplus. The cotton shortage wasn't really felt until the demand for textiles by both sides kicked into high gear in 1862.

I am curious where else the British could have bought enough grain for half their population on a few months' notice. Yes, resources could be reallocated across the empire, like what was done with cotton growing in Egypt and India, but who had a capacity similar to the US? It would have taken 2-3 years to ramp up the agricultural base. And one of the reasons US grain was so plentiful was our mechanization of agriculture. No one else had similar yields per labor unit.

Half their population? I'll quote myself again to dispell this myth:

"The UK eats 4.5 million tons of grain a year. It normally produced around 4 million tons a year, and in 1862 the poor harvests meant only around 3.7 million tons was produced. US exports skyrocketed from 0.05 million tons to around 0.25 million tons (excluding re-exports). Thus around 5% of the grain consumed on the UK home market is from the US. In terms of calories the US is supplying around 1-2% of the calories consumed (wheat accounts for around 55% of the weight of starch consumed, the remaining 45% being potatoes, the average Briton eating 1lb of wheat and 0.8 lbs of potatoes per day, plus a lot of meat and vegetables, wheat only accounts for around 30% of calories consumed).

In fact the grain market is far more globalised than these statistics show. Grain in different places comes into season at different times, and there was no refrigeration, so trade flowed in different directions at different times of the year. The loss of US imports would result in a price spike in July 1862 from 45 shillings to around 70 shillings, which is still cheaper than before the repeal of the corn laws. Such is the market elasticity. Higher prices would trigger exports from further away which would become profitable.

The idea that US grain was a gun to Britains head is totally baseless, although popular in some circles."

@Choun ah, your thinking like a 19th century brit, we have all these ships there is no reason why we shouldn`t win. Ways & means.

Hammerhead,

I think its important to have a 19th Century mindset to understand what went on.

We in the 21st Century can debate till the cows come home if blockades would work, or Britain/France would intervene, declare war, or recognize the South.

The important thing is both the North and South thought all of these to be a very real possibility and it thrilled and terrified them in equal measure depending on the circumstances of the moment.

Am I? Look at those ways and means. A massive fleet with the logistical support to keep them at sea for as long as necessary, combined with superiority over the enemy's ships in technology and firepower, as well as numbers. How could the US break the blockade for long enough to make any difference?
"Oh sure. I thought you were advocating some kind of "fleet-in-being" blockade. But they would have to come close enough that the monitors would be able to get at them. You can't blockade from miles out to sea. Too easy for fast blockade runners to slip through (as the Federals found when blockading Confederate ports)."

But they wouldn't though. A squadron 15' off Sandy Hook would keep the Hudson blockaded. If a monitor came out then the superior speed and manoevrability of the RN vessels, at sea, would enable them to defeat it, or render it incapable of catching them, even in good weather. The sheer numbers would stop others escaping whilst the monitor or monitors were struggling along, with their decks awash, at 4 knots, unable to fire more than once every 15 minutes, and unable to maintain a steady course.

"And if the British wanted to break the Union blockade of Confederate ports they'd definitely have to come to where the Union ships were. Again it depends on when this happens. The longer the war went on the fewer ports the Confederates had and more ironclads the US Navy had."
No, they wouldn't. The USN armoured vessels were dependent upon coal; all the RN would need to do would be to interdict the ships carrying coal. The monitors wouldn't be capable of escorting or protecting them, and the conventional US vessels wouldn't be strong enough to oppose RN screw frigates, never mind RN armoured ships.
In any case the conventional US vessels carrying out the blockades would also be unable to beat the bigger faster and better armed RN vessels.
Let's look sat an example. Charleston, under blockade by a considerable US fleet, including monitors. A squadron of screw ships of the line and frigates arrives off Charleston with HMS Black Prince as flag. There is a considerable number of USN lightly armed blockaders, with a squadron of monitors. The RN squadron cruises about 10' off the US fleet, whilst a squadron of screw sloops cruises northwards snapping up US supply vessels. The conventional US vessels can't stand against a vessel like HMS Hannibal with it's 17 8" rifles and 28 32 pdrs a side and either surrender, run or are destroyed. Because the monitors can't fight in open sea, they stay close to the coast, close to Lighthouse Inlet in sheltered water. The blockade of Charleston has, however, been lifted. The USN armoured vessels can't block the entrance to Charleston Harbour without going close to the mines and obstructions around Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie and Battery Gregg, so Charleston is open. How long before the US armoured squadron is out of supplies, especially coal? Or the squadron heads North, along the coast, in safety. Other RN squadrons are doing the same kind of thing off Tybee, Cape Fear, Hatteras, Galveston, and SW Pass. Not much fighting necessary, because of the extreme imbalance of forces and the US blockade is gone. How long would Fort Pulaski stand without naval support and supply? Or Fort Hatteras?
A contemporaneous blockade of the North would ensure that the North couldn't resupply the USN blockading the South, and a squadron of 3 vessels like HMS Marlborough supported by screw frigates like HMS Eurylaus or sloops like HMS Charybdis, could stop anything the USN had that might to force it's way out, or catch anything that tried to slip out. The RN squadrons wouldn't have to go in and attack anything in the North, just stop them from getting away if they got out. A UK world wide embargo on the sale of coal to US vessels would stop US cruisers from getting very far if they were able to slip out, or would reduce them to sailing vessels, from which British steam merchant vessels could easily escape from. The Confederate cruisers were able to achieve success because they got guns, crews and coal from the UK, or UK suppliers. They wouldn't have got very far if the UK intoduced an international embargo on coal sales to the Confederacy!
Of course the political question, in reality, is an important one,. but the premise of the discussion is what if the UK DID join in on the side of the Confederacy, not would they.

Viz the comments on USS New Ironsides and Galena. The New Ironsides was extremely slow, barely manoevrable, and because of her design could fire at a maximum of 2000 yards. She was also barely seaworthy because of her flat bottom and hull form. Fine as a floating battery, but as a slow, barely sea-worthy, unmanoevrable floating batterty with unarmoured ends, less effective.
The Galena was more seaworthy, but still very slow at 8 knots, her armour was ineffective and was removed, and her armament was little more than that of a small RN sloop, with only 3 guns a side.
Neither, I would suggest, could have taken on any contemporary RN armoured vessel with any chance of success, and USS New Ironsides would have found difficulties in taking on a conventional RN screw frigate.

67thtigers, have a reference for all that?

[Sorry if this is posted twice for some reason the system went haywire when I tried to post the first time.]

This isn't true. The British, rightly, perceived the Emancipation Proclamation as a cynical attempt to ferment a servile war in the south whilst maintaining slavery in the North. It actually brought the British to the brink of intervening on humanitarian grounds. Fortunately the ploy failed and there was no mass uprising of slaves in the south which would bring in the British.

You are partially correct. The initial reaction by the British press was predictably that it was an act of desperation on the part of Lincoln. This is why he waited for a victory to announce it and Antietam was close enough.

It was a brilliant ploy by Lincoln. By altering the course of the war from being about re-union to also being about emancipation it guaranteed no British government would intervene in the war. The British working class would never support it. Not sure he intended to bring on slave revolts but I'm sure he wouldn't mind if it had, but that wasn't the point.

By freeing only the slaves in the states not controlled by the Union he kept the slave holding border states in the Union.

Lincoln struggled to see it too. Fortunately Seward (of all people!) was a lot smarter than Lincoln and steered US-UK relationships much better than Lincoln did.

Yes and no. Seward advised Lincoln to delay emancipation until a Union victory or else it would seem like an act of desperation. IMHO he was correct.

But Seward would sometimes let his emotions get the better of him. After one of the British/American diplomatic blow ups took place, Seward seriously suggested that the U.S. should declare war on Britain. Lincoln wisely said "one war at a time" I still think he was one of our best Secretary of states. The person that deserves more credit for keeping the British from being more active in the war, was U.S. Ambassador to Britain Charles Francis Adams.

Cold Steel and others are correct that Union grain trumped Southern cotton. "King Cotton Diplomacy" was a disaster for the South. The British developed their own sources for cotton.

It was not brilliant, Lincoln was frankly simple minded*. It brought Britain to the brink of a unilateral intervention in October 1862. See chapters 8 and 9 of Jones' Union in Peril link

* and thought of as such at the time. He remains the most unpopular President in US history during his tenure. See Tagg's The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: link

The British, rightly, perceived the Emancipation Proclamation as a cynical attempt to ferment a servile war in the south whilst maintaining slavery in the North. It actually brought the British to the brink of intervening on humanitarian grounds. Fortunately the ploy failed and there was no mass uprising of slaves in the south which would bring in the British.

If they "perceived" that, they were swallowing Confederate propaganda. If by slave insurrection you mean slaves cutting their masters' throats while they slept, etc. The only "slave insurrection" that resulted was that the U.S. raised regiments of "Colored Troops" from the slaves it freed.

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in September, to take effect in January. It was a warning to the Confederates -- end the war before 1 January if you want to keep your slaves. Had it been intended to inspire a slave revolt, there would have been no need for a 3.5-month delay in it taking effect.

Lincoln knew that he had no constitutional power to free slaves in the loyal states; and the Emancipation Proclamation only had legitimacy as a war measure -- the seizure of the property of the insurrectionists.

Only the 13th Amendment to the the U.S. Constitution ended slavery in the rest of the country. It was in the process of being ratified by the loyal states as the war ended.

67thtigers:

Washington was not all that popular during his Presidency nor was Truman and neither was Lincoln. But he was reelected in 1864.

Most of his cabinet started out thinking him a simpleton but if you read the writings of Sweard and Gideon Welles they came to see his genius.

Every credible Historian rates him if not the greatest, one of the three greatest Presidents in American history. You sound like George McCellen in his letters to his wife and friends or are you just a Rebelphile. Let me reccomend to you a few books.

link

link

link

link

The last one was my college text book in American Diplomatic History. Good read.

Trajanus, The confederates invented an early torpedo also a working submarine so, thinking how to kill your enemy speeds up in wartime. And once this starts how long would the British G`ment accept losses to the fleet, & how long would the conflict last?

thinking how to kill your enemy speeds up in wartime

Indeed it does, you only have to look at airplanes in the WW1 for that.

However, Confederate "Torpedoes" were really only mines by another name and the technology to make and ocean going CSS Hunley was so far beyond them (or anyone else for that matter) as not to be worried about.

Neither of these would have presented a threat to a blockade.

What losses to the fleet? What seagoing vessels did the US have that could cause loss to the RN? The "torpedo" you describe was actually a mine, some contact some electrically controlled from the shore. How would either affect a vessel patrolling off the coast on blockade? rather than one rying to enter a port. The "Hunley" was only effective, like the "David" against a vessel at anchor. Neither could have been of any use against a moving vessel.

Rallynow,

Quite agree. Although I don't personally like Team of Rivals as a book (too much space spent on pre 1860 Republican nomination background and not enough on some of the more important bits of the Lincoln administration).

However, its hard to read it with an open mind and still agree with the "Big Ape" school of thought.

If it had been been me I would have shot several of senior figures starting with McCellen, closely followed by Seward, although he did appreciate what Lincoln was really worth eventually!