"Lincoln Had Almost No Navy in 1861 — So He Overruled" Topic

… His Own Admirals

"When Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office in March 1861, the Union Navy counted fewer than ninety vessels in total — and many of those were rotting sailing ships scattered across distant oceans, chasing pirates and showing the flag in ports that would never matter to this war. What Lincoln actually had available in American waters amounted to a handful of steam-powered warships, nothing close to sufficient for what he was already privately planning.

The scale of the problem was almost paralyzing. The Confederate coastline ran from Virginia down to the tip of Texas — roughly 3,500 miles of shore, studded with inlets, tidal rivers, natural harbors, and the kind of geography that swallows blockade fleets whole. And yet, on April 19, 1861 — just days after Fort Sumter fell — Lincoln proclaimed exactly that blockade, a sweeping declaration that Confederate ports were closed to commerce. European capitals received the news with undisguised amusement. Britain and France, whose merchant ships depended on Southern cotton, calculated that the Union didn't own enough hulls to enforce a blockade of a medium-sized pond, let alone a continental coastline…"

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Armand