673
tending- to promote, the efficiency and activity of the blockade of theSouthern shores. We have not entered upon the exclusive considera-tion of the great military expeditions alone; we have treated mixedexpeditions compounded of military and naval operations, and re-quiring combined naval and military action.”
In the above extracts we can note the inceptionof the Port Royal expedition, so ably executed andso important in its results, as well as the crea-tion of a systematic plan of blockade, practi-cally extending from Cape Hatteras to theRio Grande. It seems just to the memoryof the late Rear-Admiral Du Pont andhis associates in the conference, all of■whom have passed away, to presentthese important facts in a substan-tial and reliable form.
The early attempts at blockad-coast from Hatteras to Florida the necessity of the oceupa-many Southern ports asblockade from within amade effective by one
b^uri
ing therevealedtion of aspossible. Aharbor may beor more shipsand uncertaintyexterior blockademaintained beyondguns of an enemy inthe adjacent coasts. Evenblockading the two en-tire Cape Fear River wereprevent the frequent arrivalparture of blockade-runners.
The only possible policy for theNavy Department was to secure thecooperation of the army. And aftera well-outlined preliminary agreement,
General Thomas W. Sherman , on the 2dof August, 1861, was directed “ to proceedimmediately to New York and organize, inconnection with Captain Du Pont , of the navy,an expedition of twelve thousand men. Its des-tination,” said his orders, “you and the naval com-mander will determine after you have sailed.”
A dozen or more small gun-boats were then underconstruction in the Northern States on contract, andvessels of every size, from a canal steamboat to the
without the fatigueattendant upon anwhich must bethe range of thepossession ofthirty vesselstrances tounable toand de-
VOL. I. 43