The Naval War—: Introduction

>|7 S?! fV--: *·- % mm t A-Ql THE NAVAL WARINTRODUCTION Virgil Carrington Jones When Editor Robert Dykstra asked me to assist him with a special issue of Civil War History, I was suspiciously prompt in assenting. My willingness might seem to have been influenced by my official duties with the National Civil War Centennial Commission, which bring me into almost daily contact with his predecessor, James I. Robertson, Jr. But more properly it should be attributed to a cudgel I picked up seven years ago when I began writing a trilogy on the naval end of the Civil War. All my life—and seriously for the last quarter century—I have been a student of this great conflict. As a landlubber, my interests naturally were devoted primarily to land activities. Occasionally I encountered the part played by ships and sailors, but never were they considered as important as the men who marched to battle. Embarrassed as I am to admit it now, I looked upon them more or less in the light that I did the wagons and teamsters that shuttled food and supplies to soldiers on the firing line. Then, in 1956, through the persuasion of friends who had more confidence in me than I had in myself, I began a serious study of naval warfare. The more I studied, the more my eyes were opened. For the real story of Union successes in closing ports and starving the South into submission—the real explanation of the outcome of battle campaigns in almost every instance except when the fighting occurred so far inland that ships were not a factor—lies more with die navy than with the army. The naval war had been ignored, I realized. So I decided to do my part toward making amends. Only by putting the navies into proper perspective can the Civil War and its outcome be correctly and fairly interpreted or understood. In this special issue no attempt has been made at a comprehensive Virgil Carrington Jones, guest editor of this special issue, is the author of a number of distinguished volumes on the Great Conflict. The latest is his monumental trilogy, The Civil War at Sea, completed last year. 117 118VIRGIL CARRINGTON JONES view of the naval war. On the contrary, we have endeavored to bring together articles on various aspects of the sea story that are not yet fully explored. The subjects covered thus vary both in scope and importance . The aim has been to analyze these several selected topics with detailed accuracy and, as far as possible, to relate diem to the overall picture. In order to give the various contributions a semblance of continuity , they have been arranged in a modified chronological order. First, John D. Milligan turns his attention to the steam ram developed early in the war by Charles Eilet, the ambitious engineer who gave his life, along with his ideas, toward preserving the Union. Nothing that figured in the Mississippi campaign is more unique or more fascinating than these hastily-constructed vessels that provided the balance of power wherever they appeared. No single incident of the conflict involved more potential dynamite than Captain Charles Wilkes's imprudent kidnapping of two Confederate envoys off the deck of the British ship Trent in late 1861. John Sherman Long gives the motives and actions of the protagonist in this international affair a searching study, thereby shedding much new light on a complicated problem. William N. Still, Jr., places in focus the Confederate ironclad as it fit into Southern naval strategy. One of the most successful inventions to emerge from the war, these mailed vessels had their detractors as well as their champions. At the higher levels of command, their story is a study both in technological innovation and bureaucratic politics. Richard S. West, Jr., turns his able pen to the plucky but disappointingperformance of Federal gunboats in the ill-fated Yazoo Pass Expedition of 1863. In no single instance did the drawbacks of the ironclad emerge more clearly. Had this bold Federal maneuver only succeeded, it might have lopped months off the crucial reduction of Vicksburg. One of the most mysterious and complicated features of the war was the...