The Union Blockade in the American Civil War: A Reassessment by Michael Brem Bonner and Peter McCord

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Union Blockade in the American Civil War: A Reassessment by Michael Brem Bonner and Peter McCord Charles J. Wexler (bio) The Union Blockade in the American Civil War: A Reassessment. By Michael Brem Bonner and Peter McCord. ( Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2021. Pp. 217. Cloth, $45.00.) In The Union Blockade in the American Civil War, Michael Brem Bonner and Peter McCord focus on the effectiveness of Confederate blockade-runners and the U.S. blockade of the Confederate coastline. Building on existing works by David Surdam, Robert Browning Jr., and Stephen Wise, the authors deploy a statistical analysis of the blockade, which they [End Page 121] feel should be viewed "not as a subsection of general histories about the Civil War, but as a critical component of Union strategy that deserves greater detailed inquiry" (7). Bonner and McCord begin by discussing diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the United States and Confederacy that concerned the blockade. The 1856 Declaration of Paris provided a new definition for international blockades, requiring sufficient force to prevent coastal access. The authors argue that the British deftly used the Declaration of Paris to navigate relations with both the United States and Confederacy. They also note that without unofficial support from the British and the granting of belligerent rights, the Confederacy might not have survived through 1865. Bonner and McCord then delve into the blockade and blockade-runners. They note the importance of the Union Blockade Board and how it set the Union navy on a path toward long-term success. The blockaders pursued a strategy of port saturation. To accomplish it, blockading squadrons enacted both an inside and outside blockade of key ports, with faster steamers operating in blue-water conditions and lighter draft vessels kept in close in order to deter ships that hugged the coastline and occupied inlets. The blockade effectively kept larger ships or sail-powered craft from entering Confederate ports, forcing blockade-runners to employ faster, sleeker vessels. These newer ships sacrificed cargo space for larger engines, but they also presented a greater chance to successfully slip past the off-shore blockaders. Regardless of the number of Union warships involved in the effort, the best way to prevent further blockade-running was to capture Confederate ports. After outlining this history, the authors move into the heart of their work: assessing the blockade's supposed effectiveness. They discuss how southerners viewed the blockade during the Civil War, relying on the journals of Edmund Ruffin, Mary Boykin Chesnut, and others. From the authors' perspective, the psychological impact of the blockade grew throughout the war. Bonner and McCord then move on to address a perceived "Psycho-Historiographic Effect" within the historical literature (139). They assess the contributory argument, which specifies that "the blockade assisted Union armies in a gradual but complete reduction of Southern economic and military resources" (140). The authors recognize that this argument often appears within the historiography but is difficult to directly measure. Believing that past arguments have reinforced current ones without statistical support, Bonner and McCord meticulously track the effectiveness of the blockade. They combine data sets on blockade-runners from two published sources: Marcus Price's articles in American Neptune (1948–55) and Stephen Wise's Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during [End Page 122] the Civil War (1988). They focus their examination on October 1861 to October 1864, omitting the opening and closing six months of the war. In doing so, Bonner and McCord want "to allow equal opportunity of success for both the Union squadrons and blockade-runners" (155). They then divide their data set into three-month intervals to discover broader trends over time rather than examining specific locations. Their data yield strong conclusions about the blockade in this three-year period. During this time frame, blockaders stopped enemy steamers at a relatively stable rate. The blockaders averaged 15.6 blockade-runners captured or destroyed. Tables 3 and 4 reveal that the number of blockade-runners increased throughout the war and so did the total tonnage. They further show that the number of steam-powered blockaders increased each year from 71 steamers in 1861 to 127 in 1864. The total tonnage...