The Civil War on the Atlantic Coast, 1861–1865: U.S. Army Campaigns of the Civil War

In The Civil War on the Atlantic Coast, 1861-1865, R. Scott Moore states that, over the course of four years of war, Federal military operations along the Atlantic coast played a key role in slowly strangling the Confederacy. Between 1862 and 1865, Southern cotton exports fell to just 5 percent of prewar levels. The number of vessels entering Confederate ports steadily decreased as the war went on. The broad strategy first envisioned by Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott and detailed by the Commission of Conference ultimately proved highly effective. Bit by bit the North closed off rebel commerce while keeping Southern coastal communities in a state of alarm that tied down the Confederacy's own hard-pressed military manpower. Thus, despite their relatively few numbers and often forgotten efforts, the soldiers who served along the Atlantic coast played a crucial part in the outcome of the Civil War.