The United States Civil War tore the nation apart and cost the lives of more Americans than all of its other conflicts combined. The Civil War has been studied by historians since its end in 1865 and still is an open topic for serious scholarship. The War Between the States has been seen as mostly a conflict on land. The naval aspects of the Civil War and their effects are a relatively neglected part of Civil War history.
While there are memorable naval events like the first battle between ironclad warships at the Battle of Hampton Roads in 1862, historians are divided on the effects of the Union and Confederate navies on the war. Historians, such as James M. McPherson in War on The Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865, argues the naval portion of the war was crucial to the outcome to the conflict. Others, such as Craig L. Symonds in The Civil War at Sea, argue that Civil War navies had a lesser importance on the conflict, but did influence the military direction of the war.
The Union blockade attempted to cut off the trade of the Confederacy with seemingly mixed results. Many historians do not focus on the long-term effects of the Union blockade on the Confederacy. The historians that do, such as Stephen R. Wise in Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War argues that trade to Southern ports displayed a decline, but many blockade runners successfully skirted the Union patrolling ships and brought in vital supplies.
The Union blockade appears to have severely hurt the Confederacy and led to a spiral effect on the Civilian population and the overall Confederate war effort. Despite some military supplies that were brought in by blockade runners and great ingenuity by Southerners, nothing could overcome the loss of trade. The loss of imports may have led to shortages and a reliance on homespun manufacture. The is seems to have led to hunger, a decline in civilian morale, military desertions, and a reliance on an over-used railroad system. This spiral effect of the Union blockade on Confederate trade, economics, and the overall Confederate war effort can be seen as an area to focus on in this dissertation.
Some research questions I would like to explore in my dissertation are: How important were maritime aspects to the defeat of the Confederacy? How much of an impact did the Union navy’s blockade make on the Confederate war effort? How did the Union blockade effect the Confederacy’s trade and economy? What freedom of action did Gideon Welles, as the Union Secretary of the Navy, and Stephen Mallory, as the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, have on planning and strategy?
At first, the research for this dissertation seemed to focus on military history. After some preliminary work, the questions that were raised with the effects of the blockade pointed to evidence in social history. The journals of Confederate women and men who lived through the war often refer to making due with shortages of many important necessary items such as clothing, food, and medicines. Research will tend to focus on these journals and diaries. Many of them were published as books. Some were also published in magazines. This dissertation will focus on trying to discover why so many staple items were in short supply and the efforts of the Confederate government to alleviate shortages and break the Union blockade with its own navy. Ersatz in the Confederacy by Mary E. Massey pointed out that severe deprivations occurred all over the Confederacy. Even things that were easy to obtain before the war, such as salt to preserve food, became difficult to obtain during the war. This dissertation will discover what were the causes of these deprivations and if the Union blockade of the Confederacy was a major factor.
Scholarship on this topic would span from economic history, social history, the history of technology, and military history. It would also include the overall trend of including race, class, and gender aspects into the research. Women ran the households while many men were off fighting. African-American men were conscripted and volunteered to be sailors in the Union Navy. In recent scholarship on the Civil War, historians have also argued for its inclusion as part of Atlantic History. The United States Civil War is not insulated from general trends in historical scholarship that include multiculturalism, diversity, and the conflict’s connections to Atlantic History. This trend can only strengthen my research about the conflict and highlight its multiracial and multicultural nature.
In conclusion, I would like to investigate naval aspects of the United States Civil War because I believe I have discovered a gap in the historical scholarship on the Civil War. Historians that discuss naval aspects of the war are mostly focused on military aspects the shortages of basic needs of people have been neglected. I plan to discover the long-term effects of the blockage and how important these effects were on the conflict. Primary sources will be utilized; but sources that illustrate the importance of race, class, and gender on the topic will also be used. The naval aspects of the Civil War will be evaluated as to their overall impact on Confederate economics, finance, and duration of the conflict.
My Dissertation Blog - Liberty University 