Us Coast And Geodetic Survey Ships Fighting Confederate Blockade Runners War Service ?

The battle betwixt ship and shore on the coast of Confederate Georgia was a pivotal function of the Union strategy to subdue the land during the Civil War (1861-65).

U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's call at the start of the war for a naval blockade of the entire Southern coastline took time to materialize, merely by early 1862, underUnion general Winfield Scott'due south "Anaconda Programme," the Union navy had positioned a serviceable fleet off the coast of the South'southward most prominent Amalgamated ports. In Georgia, Marriage strategy centered on Savannah, the state's virtually meaning port urban center. Beyond Savannah, Spousal relationship forces generally focused on securing bases of operation on outlying coastal islands to counter Confederate privateers.

Confederate defensive strategy, in plough, evolved with the Union blockade. Later the fall of Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861, Confederate president Jefferson Davis appointed General Robert E. Lee to reorganize Confederate littoral defenses. Lee quickly realized the impossibility of defending the entire coastline and decided to consolidate express Confederate forces and materiel at central strategic points. He countered Union naval superiority by ensuring easy reinforcement of Confederate littoral positions forth railroad lines. In this way, Lee minimized reliance upon the fledgling Confederate navy and maximized the utilize of Confederate military forces in coastal areas, including both Georgia's Sea Islands and mainland ports with railroad connections.

Confederate Privateering and Naval Innovation

On the night of Nov 11, 1861, a daring Confederate blockade-runner, Edward C. Anderson, escaped under Matrimony eyes and piloted his ship, the Fingal, into the port of Savannah. A native of Savannah, Anderson was the first of many who attempted to assist the Confederate cause by breaking through the Union's extensive coastal blockade, which stretched from Virginia to Florida. Still, in Georgia none would match Anderson's success. The landing of Enfield rifles and cannons, every bit well as sabers and military uniforms, at the country's major port marked the loftier tide of the Southward's ability to penetrate the North's naval forces stationed along the Georgia shore.

Merely Anderson's remarkable feat besides signaled to the Spousal relationship that it needed to bolster its blockade and close off admission to Savannah, which, similar Charleston, South Carolina, to the northward, offered an access bespeak readily able to provide Amalgamated armies with necessary state of war materiel. If the Wedlock hoped to wear the South down by cutting information technology off from the outside earth, then information technology had to put a cease to incidents like the Fingal's arrival at Savannah.

While smaller vessels than the Fingal sometimes did evade Northern capture, their modest hauls made for paltry victories. Because Spousal relationship forces took control of the seas around Brunswick and St. Simons Island in the war's beginning stages, the virtual closing of Savannah'due south port to privateers like Anderson greatly contributed to eventual Marriage success in Georgia.

Confederate leadership and the people of Savannah came to pin their hopes of resisting Union occupation and breaking the blockade on a handful of gunboats. While built as a British merchant ship, the occludent-running Fingal was converted to an ironclad in 1862 and renamed the Atlanta. This transport, as well as the Georgia and later the Savannah, were ironclads patterned after the CSS Virginia, famous for its battle confronting the USS Monitor at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1862. The Macon, the Sampson, the Resolute, and the Isondiga, wooden gunboats of varying designs, constituted the remainder of the Confederate armada in Savannah. In improver, Georgia'southward littoral defenses included innovative torpedoes, developed by Commodore Matthew Maury, which acquired the Spousal relationship navy periodic concern. Despite these innovations, the Confederate naval forces paled in comparing to Marriage naval force. Despite fleeting successes by Southern naval forces, the increasingly stiff Matrimony navy ultimately enabled complete Union command of the Georgia coastline.

Fort Pulaski and Savannah Harbor

General Lee's decision to consolidate forces in 1862 began with the withdrawal of Amalgamated troops from St. Simons and Jekyll islands on the southeastern Georgia coast. On March 9, 1862, 2 Spousal relationship gunboats arrived to notice abandoned the earthwork batteries overlooking the channel between the islands. Sailing farther inland to the town of Brunswick, the ships plant the boondocks deserted and the wharf and depot ablaze.

Marriage naval forces took other Sea Islands with similar lack of resistance. Tybee, the northernmost of Georgia'south islands and within like shooting fish in a barrel range of Fort Pulaski, fell to Union forces without a fight. Along with Union gunboats, batteries erected on Tybee initiated the offset major date in Savannah on Apr ten, 1862. Matrimony forces under the command of Major General David Hunter and Captain Quincy A. Gillmore bombarded Fort Pulaski, which was commanded by Confederate colonel Charles H. Olmstead, overnight. The rifled cannons of the Union gunboat Norwich, likewise as those from the country batteries, made short piece of work of the masonry walls of Fort Pulaski. Fearing a complete breach in the walls and explosion of the fort'south pulverisation magazine, Olmstead surrendered. Union troops occupied Fort Pulaski for the rest of the war.

Early in the state of war, 1,500 Amalgamated troops were ordered to St. Simons Island to defend it against the Spousal relationship blockade. By the end of 1862 Lee had ordered those troops to move n to assist defend Savannah, leaving St. Simons open to Union occupation. In June 1863 the Fifty-quaternary Massachusetts regiment, i of the Union's first African American regiments, under commander Robert Gould Shaw, spent several weeks on the island and made an expedition up the Altamaha River. On June 11 they were ordered to attack the nearby port of Darien, which was thought to be a base for blockade-running activity. Despite objections from Shaw, his troops, along with the Second Southward Carolina Infantry, burned and looted the boondocks, causing the greatest wartime devastation to civilian property along the Georgia coast. The film Glory (1989) recreates this incident, along with the Fifth-fourth's suicidal assualt on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, on July 18, 1863.

Fort McAllister and Savannah'south Surrender

Two years passed earlier Union troops moved on Savannah itself, and contrary to Confederate expectations, the attack came from the west, not the east. Savannah's other protective bastion, Fort McAllister, to the city'due south south on the Ogeechee River, became its concluding remaining hope and a master obstacle to Spousal relationship forces.

Several naval sorties engaged Fort McAllister throughout 1862 and 1863. On July 29, 1862, iv Union gunboats bombarded the fort for several hours, accomplishing little. Again, on November xix, three ships assailed the fort to little avail. On Jan 27, 1863, the Union ironclad Montauk and several wooden gunboats pounded the fort for several hours, again with little issue. Similar engagements occurred on Feb i, 27, and 28. In the last engagement, Wedlock forces failed to drastically bear upon Fort McAllister simply destroyed the Confederate privateer Nashville , which had grounded nearly the fort in seeking protection from Marriage ships. Some other bombardment of the fort three days subsequently again produced minimal results. These repeated repulsions of the Union navy by Confederate troops in Fort McAllister accomplished niggling for the Northern crusade but heartened the Confederate troops, as well as the citizens of Savannah.

Drawing on this confidence, Confederate flag officer Josiah Tattnall sought to employ his ironclads to break through the Union blockade in Savannah'south harbor. Notwithstanding, several ill-fated attempts to engage Matrimony forces ultimately resulted in the loss of the ironclad Atlanta at the hands of the Union ironclad Weehawken on June 17, 1863. Though a new ironclad, the Savannah, became operational in July, along with two wooden gunboats, the Macon and Sampson, Confederate leadership in Savannah generally spurned offensive operations for the remainder of the war.

Yet, in June 1864 Confederate naval troops managed a minor victory with the capture of the USS Water Witch. While anchored near Savannah, the Water Witch was captured by officers and crew members of the Georgia, Savannah, and Sampson. Ultimately, however, that small conquest did not improve the Confederacy's fortunes.

This increasingly defensive opinion culminated in facing Union general William T. Sherman's troops on their 1864 march to the sea. Fort McAllister formed the backbone of Savannah'south remaining defensive line. Late in the afternoon of December 13, 1864, a Marriage division nether Brigadier General William B. Hazen, function of Sherman's Fifteenth Corps, assaulted McAllister. Though slowed by obstacles and minefields, in addition to Confederate artillery burn down, the Spousal relationship troops overwhelmed the fort and forced its surrender.

With McAllister occupied, Sherman effectively linked with the Spousal relationship navy, sounding the death knell for Amalgamated Savannah. The Amalgamated leadership realized the hopelessness of the situation following McAllister's capture and withdrew their remaining forces beyond the Savannah River into Southward Carolina. In retreat, the Confederates gear up fire to their surviving naval squadron, including the ironclad Savannah, effectively catastrophe any resistance to Sherman'due south capture of the urban center. In a telegram dated December 22, 1864, General Sherman presented the city of Savannah equally a Christmas souvenir to President Lincoln, ending both the March to the Sea and major military machine engagement on the Georgia coast.