Civil War Navy
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THE CIVIL WAR ON THE WATER BY SEQUOIA BELLANCA BACKGROUND INFORMATION OVERVIEW OF THE WAR ON THE WATER BACKGROUND INFORMATION SHIPS Sloop-of-war Riverboats and Ferries Schooners “Casemate” ironclads BACKGROUND INFORMATION SHIPS Double Enders Submarines Steam Frigates Air Craft Carriers BACKGROUND INFORMATION CIVIL WAR NAVAL ACTIONS • The Battle of Port Royal- November 7, 1861 • The Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson- February 6-16, 1862 • he Battle of Hampton Roads- March 8-9, 1862 • The Battle of Island No. 10- February 28-April 8, 1862 • The Capture of New Orleans- May 1, 1862 • The Battle of Drewry's Bluff- May 15, 1862 • The Battle of Fort Hindman/Arkansas Post- January 9-11, 1863 • The Vicksburg Campaign- December 1862-July 4, 1863 • The Siege of Charleston Harbor- July 19, 1863-September 7, 1863 • The Second Battle of Sabine Pass- September 8, 1863 • The H.L Hunley Sinks the USS Housatonic- February 17, 1864 • The Battle of Plymouth- April 17-20, 1864 • CSS Alabama vs. USS Kearsarge- June 19, 1864 • The Battle of Mobile Bay- August 5, 1864 • The Bahia Incident- October 7, 1864 • The Second Battle of Fort Fisher- January 13-15, 1865 • The Battle of Trent's Reach- January 23-25, 1865 • The Surrender of the CSS Shenandoah- November 6, 1865 • The Battle of Memphis- June 6, 1862 BACKGROUND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES • STEAM: • -introduction of steam power • -Steam engines had existed before the nineteenth century, but Robert Fulton built the first steam-powered warship in 1815 for the US Navy • -better than sailing ships because there movement didn't have to rely on the wind for power and direction • -they were able to return upriver after transporting their goods then be able to continue on the journey with weak winds • -by 1850s, all new warships built by the navy were steam powered • - even though they didn't rely highly on the winds, they didn't move much faster and many ships had to use sails to preserve fuel on long trips • -looked like sailing ships, except for the smokestack coming from the deck • -served as blockade runners, transports, and cruisers • IMPROVED ARTILLERY: • -huge military developments lead to further change to the warships • -in 1850s there were many alterations in the construction of cannons and allowed the military to build bigger, more accurate, and longer-ranged guns. • -John Dahlgren: a naval officer who developed a technique for reinforcing the breach of a cannon to better withstand the extra gunpowder needed to fire larger shells at greater distances • -both navies used the smoothbore cannon, but the rifled cannon became more common in the 1850-60s • -had grooves on the inside of the barrel to impart a spin on the projectile • -Several types of cannon shots existed in the centuries before the Civil War, but virtually all of them were designed to cripple a ship or kill her crew • -explosive shells became widespread • -had a timed defuse inside the shell that would detonate after hitting the ship and create a huge hole that would sink the ship BACKGROUND INFORMATION CIVIL WAR NAVAL ACTIONS • IRONCLADS: • -developments in artillery lead to more alterations • -realized that wooden ships were vulnerable to destruction, explosive fire • -naval architects started to improve ships' defense by plating them with iron or steel • -because of the casing, shells would bounce off the side of the ship and this would allow the ship to take repeated hits • -ironclads were very heavy, so powerful steam engines took the place of sails, which were weaker and vulnerable to enemy fire • -first ironclads were built in Europe but neither navy had one in the beginning of the war • -both the North and the South started to build or convert ironclads from ships of various shapes and • -some ironclads were simply normal steam ships covered with metal plates (called casemate ironclads) • -the union built lots of "Monitor" class gunboats. these sat low in the water and utilized a revolving armored gun turret. • -ironclads were able to better protect themselves from enemy fire • -groups of ironclads were able to rush past forts to enter harbors, or even – on several occasions – defeat forts in artillery duels • TORPEDOS: • -the South had to find ways to protect themselves from the Union, and because they had a shortage of iron supply and weren't able to make powerful steam engines they had to find alternatives • -they decided that they would deploy torpedoes from underneath the water, so that the could destroy ironclads • -Confederacy designed the first “torpedo boats.” These carried mines on long spars in front of the ship. • -the boats were designed to be low in the water, and hard to spot so that they could avoid cannon fire • -these boats were quickly adopted by the Union BACKGROUND INFORMATION CIVIL WAR NAVAL ACTIONS • Submarines: • -the first submarine to destroy an enemy ship was the H. L. Hunley. It sunk the USS Housatonic IN February of 1864 near Charleston • -there was no other submarine that was able to achieve notable success during the rest of the war • The design for the submarines were taken from the concept of low-profile torpedo boats • Notable Developments: • USS Monitor was the first warship to use a revolving gun turret in combat • The Navy used air craft carriers to launch observation balloons BACKGROUND INFORMATION LIFE AS A SAILOR Requirements: Age: 18/21(with parent consent) If you were thirteen or younger, you could not enlist in the North and if you were fourteen or younger, you could not enlist in the South. Height: 5’8/4’8 Experience: If you were over the age of 33 and had no experience, you could not enlist, unless you had a trade. If he did have a trade, 38 was the limit. An inexperienced man between the ages of 25 and 35 could join in the South if he had a trade. Inexperienced men that didn’t have a trade were shipped away to be landsmen or coal heavers. *Payment: Landsmen and inexperienced hands: $12/mth Ordinary Seamen: $14/mth Seamen: $18/mth Third class: $7/mth Second Class: $8/mth African Americans: In order to fight in the First Class: $9/mth Confederate Navy, they needed special According to their knowledge or physical permission from either the Navy Department or abilities, boys were rated as third, second, or the local squadron commander. Slaves needed first class in ascending order. consent from their owners in order to enlist. The Union Navy had a high number of African North / South Americans in there lower ranks because they *Payment was the same for both the North and offered them recruiting stations South GROWTH OF THE NAVY DURING THE WAR GROWING NAVIES IN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH • Growth in the North • Growth in the South • In the beginning, the North had less then 40 • Compared to the Northern Navy, the South usable ships had very few resources • Union was in need of a “brown water navy” • They had a handful of shipyards, a small • These were gunboats that would support merchant marine, and had no Navy. campaigns in Northern Virginia and the • The Confederates needed a Navy in order to Mississippi River break the Union blockade and to protect it’s port cities. • Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Naval Secretary, created a task that would make every • Stephen Mallory, the Confederate Secretary of Southern inlet, port, and bay extremely the Navy, frantically looked for new ships and dangerous fro trade and created a task to attack Union merchant ships on the seas • North began to build dozens of new warships and purchased hundreds of merchant ships • Confederate Navy decided to challenge the that they converted into blockaders by adding Navy by introducing ironclads to their navy guns, for their navy. • Southern shipyards began making ironclads as • Union navy only had wooden ships, and they fast as they could upgraded to ironclads shortly after the • After South Caroline seceded, the newly Confederates did graduated class of from the Naval Academy in • The Union wooden Navy became obsolete Annapolis, Maryland was called into action to because of the South's ironclads fill the vacancies • Northern shipyards began making ironclads as • In the beginning of the war, the Confederates fast as they could only had two navy shipyards, Norfolk and Pensacola • In order to support Ulysses S. Grants army, the Union had to build a fleet of gunboats • They converted commercial ships into ships fitted for war bu outfitting them with guns GROWING NAVIES IN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH • In the federal navy, there was only • The Confederates captured a few 1,457 officers and 7,600 seamen in Union ships and added them to the beginning of the war. By the their own navy end, it increased to 7,500 officers • A Confederate representative and 51,500 seamen. sailed to Britain, asking for help in • In January of 1862, the Union had building ship in order to defeat the 212 seaworthy vessels by repairing Union available ships, building new ones, • This would violate Britain's and adapting commercial vessels. neutrality • The Confederate representative had the ships built in his name as merchant vessels • As soon as they left British water, they outfitted the vessels for war HOW THE NORTH STRATEGICALLY UTILIZED THE NAVY UTILIZING THE NAVY • The Union (North) strategically utilized the navy when President Lincoln set the first naval goal: A blockade of the Southern Coasts • The proclamation was made April 19, 1861 for a blockade stretching from South Carolina to Texas • On April 27th, the blockade was extended in order to block North Carolina and Virginia • The plan was to cut off Southern trade with the outside world, and to prevent the sale of cotton, the Confederacy's major crop.