The first action of naval warfare in the American Civil War was the blockade of Southern ports by the Union Navy. In 1862 a British blockade running firm, Alexander Collie and Company, purchased a fast steam packet which had been operating on the Glasgow to Belfast route. Starting on April 19, 1861, the blockade was part of General Winfield Scott's strategy called the Anaconda Plan, which was an effort to reduce the South's ability to make war. BLOCKADE, CIVIL WAR. CSS Robert E. Lee was a successful blockade runner purchased from the British.
Introduction. Wikimedia. The British built CSS Robert E. Lee in an undated photgraph, likely taken after its capture by the Union Fleet. The Blockade ~In April 1861, while calling for volunteers to serve their country, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the Union blockade of Southern ports. The National Civil War Naval Museum, Columbus Georgia. -The blockade effectively stopped ships trying to enter or leave Southern ports, and Southerners began to feel the result when store shelves became bare. The blockade of the South during the Civil War, as well as Southern attempts to circumvent it, signaled a new era in naval warfare. The Blockade of Confederate Ports, 1861–1865. During the Civil War, Union forces established a blockade of Confederate ports designed to prevent the export of cotton and the smuggling of war materiel into the Confederacy. 7. James Russell Soley, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, tells a story of speed, cunning, and wild fortune.
The Confederate war effort relied on the bravery of the "blockade runners," a small group of sailors who sailed goods in and out of Southern seaports under the guns of Northern ships. The National Civil War Naval Museum tells the story of the Sailors, Soldiers, and Civilians, both Free and Enslaved as affected by the Navies of the American Civil War and provides a repository for relevant archives and artifacts on the subject including exhibits relating to blockade running.