![]() ![]() "It is barely possible," Grant wrote, "for one of the enemy's privateers to be met on that route and do us great injury." Two steamers were stationed as requested to protect the troop transports. The Corps was embarking from Annapolis, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia, for North Carolina to participate in the attack on Wilmington. Shawmut preparing for the campaign, engaged Fort Anderson to test the strength of the Confederate defenses on the west bank of the Cape Fear which guarded the approach to Wilmington.įrom City Point, Virginia, General Grant requested the Navy to keep two or three vessels patrol-ling between Cape Henry and the Cape Fear River during the transit of General Schofield's Twenty-Third Army Corps. When Grant returned to Virginia he quickly dispatched General Schofield by sea with an army which, with the big guns of the fleet, would be large enough to push on to Wilmington. The General had spent several hours on board the flagship ,Malvern on 28 January where plans took shape for the push into North Carolina up the Cape Fear River as Sherman marched inland parallel to the coast. During the lull before the planned spring assault on Richmond when the road condi-tions improved, General Grant came down to confer with Rear Admiral Porter, his old Vicksburg shipmate. To speed the collapse of the faltering South, another giant thrust gathered from the sea off Wil-mington. Now, however, he had run out of navigable water. When Savannah fell, Hunter had brought Macon and Sampson upriver with difficulty, determined to fight them as long as possible. Dai Ching to gunfire and subjected other gun-boats" to the threat of the ever-present torpedoes in shallow river and coastal waters, Sherman crossed the Savannah River and on 1 February continued his march. ![]() ![]() After preparatory combined opera-tions, in which Rear Admiral Dahlgren lost U.S.S. Sherman had spent January in Savannah preparing for the march to North Carolina and ensuring that he would have the necessary support from the sea coast. The shallow upper Savannah River made it impossible to use the vessels effectively in the defense of the city against the threatened attack by General Sherman's army which was working northward from Savannah. Carnes to turn over their ammunition to the Confederate Army at Augusta, Georgia. ![]() Hunter reported to the Confederate Navy Department that he was ordering C.S.S. Pinola, Lieutenant Commander Henry Erben, captured blockade running British schooner Ben Willis at sea in the Gulf of Mexico with cargo of cotton.ģ Flag Officer William W. Torpedo was of special importance because "she is now the only boat in connection with the Beaufort (that is crippled) that we can use to protect the Wilton Bridge from ice and to keep open our communication with the city." Alexander, to break up the ice near the bridge and remain near it "to insure its safety." Two days later, Mitchell noted that C.S.S. In the bitter cold the James River began to freeze over and the ice threatened Wilton Bridge. The expedition led by Wells was the finale in the Union Navy's effective restriction of this vital Confederate industry.Ģ Having failed to pass the obstructions at Trent's Reach in order to attack the Union supply base at City Point, Flag Officer Mitchell confronted another kind of difficulty in maintaining communications with his own capital, Richmond. Federal warships continuously destroyed salt works along the coasts of Florida. Large quantities were needed for preserving meat, fish, butter, and other perishable foods, as well as for curing hides. The making of salt from sea water became a major industry in Florida during the Civil War as salt was a critical commodity in the Confederate war effort. Wells, landed and destroyed salt works "of 13,615 boiling capacity" at St. ![]()
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