Blockade

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Union Blockading vessels at Tampa Bay, 1864

Photo Credit: courtesy of the State Archives of Florida

Adapting an element of General Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan” for a Federal victory, President Abraham Lincoln declared a blockade of the Confederate states in April 1861.

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles established several squadrons to blockade the Confederate coastline. Created in early 1862, the East Gulf Blockading Squadron (EGBS) had responsibility for the blockade of the Florida peninsula from Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic coast to St. Andrew Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. In northeast Florida, Fernandina became a center of operations for the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron after its capture by Union forces in March 1862. After its recapture in May 1862, the Pensacola Navy Yard served as an important depot for the West Gulf Blockading Squadron.

The EGBS captured or destroyed over 280 blockade-runners valued at more than $7 million, heavily damaged the sugar and salt-making industries along the Florida coast, provided haven for Unionist refugees and escaped slaves, conducted raids, and participated in combined operations with Union army forces. EGBS vessels were generally stationed at St. Andrew Bay, St. Joseph's Bay, Apalachicola, St. Marks, Cedar Key, Tampa Bay, Charlotte Harbor, Jupiter Inlet, and Indian River. Some also patrolled the northern coast of Cuba and the northern Bahamas. The squadron headquarters was at Key West, which was also home to the prize court where captured blockade runners were condemned and sold at auction.

To learn more, see: Blockaders, Refugees & Contrabands: Civil War on Florida’s Gulf Coast, 1861-1865 by George Buker, University of Alabama Press, 1993.