How could the blockade of the Confederacy during the Civil War (or any blockade, for that matter), work?

Question

Wouldn't it require thousands of ships to enforce a blockade with an extent of several thousand miles? How could a naval force possibly prevent ships from slipping through easily? Wouldn't it be like a single soldier trying to guard a length of several miles of a border? I can imagine nowadays, with radar and satellites, it could be done, but back then when ships could only see from horizon to horizon, how could such a thing work?

Answer 1

Blockades as a tactic have been used for thousands of years to a variety of successes. A common misconception is that a blockade is either total or the sole tactic. As you have stated it would be nearly impossible to stop all shipping. The purpose of a blockade is to put economic pressure on a city. By blocking trade routes you disrupt the economic abilities of a country or city to maintain and create large armies. This enables your land based forces to fight enemies that are lacking in food and weaponry. While smugglers could evade blockade forces, it jumps the cost of trade reducing profits for the blockaded country or city. Blockades are very effective when placed at the mouths of rivers or bays which limit the transportation for the entire river community.
Blockading was useful against the confederacy because it deprived the south of its main economic engine, tobacco and farming trade.

Answer 2

For the most part, it only worked because other nations cooperated and respected the blockade.

As far as a "perfect" blockade, the Union Navy never had enough sea power to absolutely, completely prevent all shipping from entering/leaving Confederate ports. However, the blockade did get better as the war lengthened, and more and more ships were prevented from entering/leaving.

There were two "definitions" of a blockade -- one where a naval force completely seals off the maritime commerce of a nation, and the second a more symbolic closure and restriction of maritime commerce. The biggest influence of the Union blockade was on the British. Since the Brits had used blockades many times, and had used the convenient definition of "symbolic", they decided to respect the Union blockade rather than force the issue on the "complete closure". And with the British navy and maritime service being the largest in the world, that very effectively isolated the Confederacy.

Answer 3

Actually blockading goes back further than the Civil War and it is very effect if done right. First off no it doesn't take thousands of ships to have a naval blockade, take in WWI the Germans used unrestricted submarine warfare very effectively in blockading merchant ships into Britian the kill ratio from ships to subs was hundreds to usually under 10 in the first few months of the blockade. Although they had radar it wasn't that effective but not having any radar such as in the Civil War (which they had a type but very ineffective) then having a blockade took more effort but still was effective to some point. The South they had no outside resources, no muntions factories, not alot of food, they were cotton growers and that was it. So everything had to be brought in and even if only 25% of the ships were taken with food on them, that's twenty five percent of your troops taht are going to go hungry. Any commander will tell you that the best way to win a war is to starve out your troops because they will be too hungry and weak to fight and before WW1 the highest cause of death was disease and malnutrition in anywar. A good example of how a blockade worked was in Russia in the late 1890's they were fighting a war on their own territory against the French and British and were starved out because of being on a Peninsula in this war they had both a naval blockade and a land blockade and with only one rail line going into the war zone they would have been able to save 50% more of the troops they lost. So you don't have to guard every inch of coastal ways, some ships are going to slip by but you don't have to capture every one of them to have an effective blockade. Actually the more effective blockades were ground ones. Examples being German blockade in WWII, British in WWII, Land in Civil war among others.

Answer 4

The blockade system does work all you need to do is arrange your fleet outside of every port. You make sure your fastest ships are stationed off of every port to catch the runners as they try to get in or out. You then send a fast but long ranged steamers to patrol open areas of the coast so when they try to unload ships in rivers your ship will spot it and attack it. The runner in a river will not have the protection of a fort or gun battery and would be easy prey. There are civil war books that go into great detail about the civil war navies.

Answer 5

When a ship (during the daylight) would come towards a blockaded port, the blocking ships would manuever towards it. Remember, you could see ifrom WAY off (10's of miles) The ships that they were blocking were big - supply ships which were slow and cumbersome. If YOU owned one of those ships, would you want it to try to sneak past and, if it's hit and sunk, then you lose it ALL?

Me neither.

Answer 6

Blockades are not just to stop ships....granted they do if they can and many to get stopped however...and you don't have to cover the whole shoreline....just the major ports....ships could get to the coast but what do they do when the can't get to a place to dock.....takes less ships to cover a port...and also it is a mind game...it makes people nervous and afraid to have another countries war ships off their coast and in their ports...it is not as complicated as you think.

Answer 7

Back they, they had alot of people that would slip by but even though they didn't have technology back then they were still intelligent people - the navy woul learn how the smugglers operated and vise versa. But it did put a major dent as to the amount that was coming in.