The Northern Fleet accomplished, or is credited with having accomplished, two things:—
(1) Its blockade reduced the food and war material supply of the South, and by checking imports and exports very effectually damaged Southern commerce.
(2) By penetrating the Mississippi the Northern Fleet cut the Southern Confederation into two.
The first operation was in its results not very dissimilar to the ideal results of a guerre de course, that is to say it ruined Southern trade very effectually. The situation here, it will be observed, reproduces tolerably closely (despite such differences as the fact that the South was not self-supporting and England in those days was) of the Anglo-Dutch War in the time of Charles II. when England abandoned grand war for commerce war. England was then much in the position of the Southerners, and Holland of the Northerners.
The second operation of the Northern Fleet is more of a compliment to the Northern Navy than the statement of a serious fact. For though all that is alleged is true enough; yet it could all have been accomplished purely by land power in a somewhat longer time. Incidentally, so, perhaps, could the first operation. Once Northern soldiers had got inside a Confederate port, they became more effectual at preventing Confederate ships using the harbour than any number of Northern ships outside, since they destroyed the base.
