The Union’s Naval War In Louisiana, 1861-1863

Union naval operations in Louisiana featured some of the most important operations of the Civil War, led by two of the US Navy’s most distinguished officers. During the period from 1861 to 1863, Admirals David G. Farragut and David D. Porter led Union naval forces in Louisiana in conducting: a blockade of the New Orleans, the Confederacy’s largest city and busiest commercial port; a naval attack to capture New Orleans in April 1862; and joint operations to secure the Mississippi River, culminating in the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson in July 1863. These operations have been the focus of many historical studies, but their relationship to Union naval strategy has often been overlooked. The primary elements of that strategy, as it applied in Louisiana, were a blockade of the Confederate coast and joint operations on the Mississippi River. This thesis studies the influences that shaped Union naval strategy in order to provide a strategic context for analyzing the development of naval operations in Louisiana from the implementation of the blockade to the opening of the Mississippi River. The result is a historical case study of the relationship between naval strategy and operations in a joint environment.