ABRAHAM LINCOLN CHAPTER I HATTERAS AND PORT ROYAL ON NE of the first questions which the British Cabinet asked of the new American Minister sent to England by Mr. Lincoln was, whether the President was serious in his proclamation of a blockade of all the ports of the States in insurrection. The coast was very extensive, said Lord John Russell, stretching some three thousand miles along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico: "Was it the design of the United States to institute an effective blockade in its whole extent, or to make only a declaration to that effect as to the whole, and to confine the actual blockade to particular points?" Mr. Adams replied that he had every reason for affirming that the blockade would be made effective; that although the coast line was in reality very long, yet the principal harbors were comparatively few, only some seven to ten in number, and those not very easy of access. It would therefore not require so numerous a fleet to guard them as might appear at first thought. VOL. V.-1 CHAP. I. Adams to Seward, May 21, 1881 This reply to some extent satisfied the inquiry. But even had it been strictly accurate, the ability of the American Government to fulfill its announce MACOM ment might naturally have been doubted by foreign powers. Our navy was rapidly falling into decadence. Of its ninety ships more than one-half had become useless. Among the remaining number there were only about twenty-four that might be called really serviceable vessels, that is, those supplied with the indispensable modern adjunct of steam power. These however were, at the date of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, not immediately available. Thirteen of them were on distant foreign stations; two were returning home from Vera Cruz; two were stationed at Pensacola, tied up by the conditions of Mr. Buchanan's "Sumter and Pickens truce"; and only three steamships were in loyal ports, where they could be with certainty called to the instant service of the Government.1 If the Government had been compelled to deal with an established naval power; if the Administration had been less vigorous and prompt in its action; or, if the patriotism of the people of the North had lacked its striking unanimity, the want of a large fleet ready for service at a critical moment might have been followed by very serious consequences. On the whole, the favoring conditions were on the side of the Union. Notwith 1 The fleet before Charleston harbor consisted of the war steamers Pawnee, eight guns, Pocahontas, five guns, and the revenue cutter Harriet Lane, five guns. The fleet before Pensacola consisted of the war steamers Powhatan, eleven guns, Brooklyn, twenty-five guns, Wyandotte, five guns, and the sailing ships, Sabine, fifty guns, Macedonian, twenty-two guns, and St. Louis, These with the steamers Cru- CHAP. I. |