A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy (45 page)

3. East coast blockade.
The Navy's Home Squadron was sent south to successfully blockade Mexico's east coast, exerting important economic and international pressure on the enemy.

4. West coast blockade and operations in California.
Sailors from the Pacific Squadron under Commodores John Stoat and Robert Stockton blockaded Mexico's west coast and conducted successful amphibious operations, landing at Monterey, San Francisco, and San Diego.

In a war so dominated by massive land battles, it is easy to overlook the role of naval warfare, but as a result of operations on the high seas, on rivers, and in bays and harbors, the Navy was a decisive factor in the Civil War's outcome. One of the major contributing factors to Union victory was the Navy's ability to effectively blockade Confederate ports, thereby bringing about economic pressure and seriously limiting Southern maneuverability. The Navy also joined with the Army to launch a series of major amphibious assaults, which resulted in the capture of a number of key strategic positions.

Armored ships proved more effective than their wooden predecessors, ushering in a new era of naval warfare and maritime technology. The indecisive battle between the USS
Monitor
and CSS
Virginia
(former USS
Merrimack
), the first ever between armored vessels, caught the attention of the world and proved to be a turning point in naval history.

Although Confederate naval forces fought valiantly throughout the war, control of the sea by the Union Navy isolated the South and gave the North's military forces the added dimension of mobility that sea power provides.

Stars

Three silver stars on the Civil War battle streamer represent the fifteen battles and operations of the Civil War.

 

1. Blockade operations.
The Union Navy blockaded some three thousand miles of Confederate coast—from Virginia to Texas—in a mammoth effort to cut off supplies, destroy the Southern economy, and discourage foreign intervention.

2. Capture of Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina (29 August 1861).
In the first amphibious operation of the war, Union Army and Navy forces captured Forts Hatteras and Clark, closing off the entrance to Pamlico Sound in North Carolina to Confederate blockade runners and providing the Union blockading squadron with an advanced base for their operations.

3. Capture of Port Royal Sound, South Carolina (7 November 1861).
The largest fleet (seventy-seven vessels) ever assembled under the U.S. flag up to that time attacked and captured Forts Walker and Beauregard, providing the Union Navy an advance base in South Carolina. A small Confederate squadron was able to successfully evacuate the troops from the forts before they fell to the Union forces.

4. Capture of Fort Henry, Tennessee River (6 February 1862).
Gunfire from Union ships under the command of Andrew Foote was so effective that Sailors were able to capture this key fort without the assistance of Army troops. After the devastating fire from the mixed fleet of wooden and ironclad gunboats disabled all but four of the fort's guns, the fort's commander surrendered.

5. Capture of Roanoke Island (7–8 February 1862).
A joint Army-Navy expedition captured the strategically important Roanoke Island in North Carolina's Albemarle Sound, completing the Union's hold on the Carolina islands.

6. USS
Monitor
versus CSS
Virginia
(former USS
Merrimack
) (9 March 1862).
In the first-ever battle between ironclads, USS
Monitor
and CSS
Virginia
fought to a draw. Tactically, neither ship was able to defeat the other; strategically, the Union blockade was not broken and the James River was denied to Union forces.

7. Battle of New Orleans (24 April 1862).
Led by Flag Officer David Farragut, Union Sailors in a fleet of wooden ships bravely endured a gauntlet of heavy fire from fortifications on both sides of the Mississippi River and then soundly defeated a Confederate flotilla, ultimately leading to the surrender of New Orleans, a tremendous strategic and psychological blow to the Confederacy.

8. Capture of Vicksburg (4 July 1863).
A combined Army-Navy siege resulted in the fall of this key Mississippi city. Coupled with the Union victory at Gettysburg, this signaled the beginning of the end of the Confederacy.

9. USS
Kearsarge
versus CSS
Alabama
(19 June 1864).
Hundreds watched from French coastal cliffs as Confederate cruiser
Alabama
was sunk in a ship-to-ship battle with the screw sloop
Kearsarge,
ending
Alabama
's long and successful worldwide commerce raiding campaign that covered more than seventy-five thousand miles and took sixty-four prizes.

10. Battle of Mobile Bay (5 August 1864).
The last major port on the Confederacy's Gulf coast was closed by Union forces after a naval squadron led by Rear Admiral David Farragut defied gun batteries and mines (called “torpedoes” in those days) to enter the Alabama Bay and defeat a Confederate squadron in a pitched battle. At a critical moment, Farragut made an important tactical decision and uttered the now-famous words: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.”

11. Destruction of CSS
Albemarle
(27–28 October 1864).
In an act of great courage, William B. Cushing and thirteen other Sailors destroyed a Confederate ironclad by ramming her with a spar torpedo under the cover of darkness while the ship was at her mooring in the Roanoke River.

12. Capture of Fort Fisher, Wilmington, North Carolina (13–15 January 1865).
In a large joint operation that involved sixty Union ships, eighty-five hundred Army troops, a naval brigade of sixteen hundred Sailors, and four hundred Marines, the fort guarding the entrance to the Cape Fear River in North Carolina was seized. The Soldiers were able to capture the fort from the rear while the defenders were preoccupied by a courageous and costly frontal assault by the Sailors and Marines.

13. Operations on the Mississippi and tributaries.
In a giant pincers campaign, river gunboats moved north and south along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, seizing key points and contributing to the economic and military strangulation of the Confederacy.

14. Campaigns in the Chesapeake and tributaries.
Because the Chesapeake Bay lay in close proximity to both the Union capital at Washington, D.C., and the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, this bay and its many tributaries served as both a “highway” and a barrier as the two sides maneuvered and periodically engaged in one of the major theaters of the war.

15. Atlantic operations against commerce raiders and blockade runners.
The Union blockade of Confederate ports led to an ongoing struggle between the two navies to gain some military advantage at sea. The weaker Confederate Navy resorted to sporadic commerce raiding, and the South's continual attempts to evade the blockading ships caused the Union Navy to expend a great deal of effort in suppressing both of these activities.

On the night of 15 February 1898, the battleship USS
Maine
was shattered by an explosion that sent the ship and two-thirds of her crew to the bottom of Havana harbor. Bolstered by widespread sympathy for those who were seeking Cuban independence from Spain's colonial rule, the emotionally charged
Maine
tragedy forced the already strained Spanish-American relations to the breaking point, precipitating a short war rapidly decided by two major naval engagements.

On 1 May the U.S. Pacific Squadron under Commodore George Dewey steamed into Manila Bay, Philippine Islands, and destroyed the Spanish fleet. Two months later, Admiral William Sampson won an equally annihilating victory over the Spanish in a running battle off Santiago, Cuba.

In addition to Sampson's and Dewey's crushing victories, naval operations included a blockade of the Cuban coast; bombardment of Spanish fortifications at San Juan, Puerto Rico, by battleship USS
Iowa,
armored cruiser USS
New York,
and other ships; and gunfire support of Marine and Army landings in Cuba and Puerto Rico.

The United States emerged from the Spanish-American War as a major naval power.

Stars

Four bronze stars represent the two major battles and two campaigns of the Spanish-American War.

 

1. Battle of Manila Bay (1 May 1898).
Already deployed to the western Pacific, the Asiatic Squadron under the command of Commodore George Dewey engaged a Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines. Despite enemy reliance upon the additional firepower of Spanish shore batteries to supplement those of the fleet, the battle proved to be a one-sided affair. The Spanish fleet was destroyed, with six ships sunk and the rest disabled, while U.S. ships were merely lightly damaged. American Sailors suffered only 8 men slightly wounded; Spanish casualties were 91 killed and 280 wounded.

2. Pacific Ocean operations.
Following the Battle of Manila Bay, naval forces supported Army operations in the Philippines, and the cruiser
Charleston
captured the island of Guam on 21 June 1898.

3. Battle of Santiago (3 July 1898).
A major naval battle off the southern coast of Cuba ended in another lopsided victory for the U.S. Navy, with an entire Spanish fleet destroyed and just minimal damage to the U.S. ships involved. One American Sailor was killed and another seriously wounded, while the Spanish suffered 323 dead and 151 wounded.

4. Atlantic/Caribbean operations.
Besides the victory at Santiago, U.S. naval forces conducted various operations in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The first shots of the war were fired in the Atlantic when the gunboat
Nashville
captured the Spanish freighter
Buenaventura.
Dozens more Spanish merchant ships were taken as the short war progressed. Other operations included blockade, reconnaissance, and homeland security patrols; troop support operations in Cuba and Puerto Rico; and several daring raids into Spanish-controlled harbors.