WAR ALONG THE COAST AND ON THE SEA %453. State of our Navy in 1861.%--On the day our flag went down at Sumter, the navy of the United States consisted of ninety vessels of every sort. Fifty of these were sailing ships. Forty were propelled by steam. Of the steam fleet one was on the Lakes, five were unserviceable, seventeen were in foreign parts, and nine laid up in navy yards and out of service. Eight steam vessels (one a mere tender) and five sailing vessels (a fleet of thirteen) made up the naval force of the United States that was available for actual service on April 15, 1861. %454. The Work before the Navy.%--The duty of the navy was to 1. Blockade the coast from Norfolk in Virginia to the Bio Grande in Texas. 2. Capture the seaports and forts scattered along this coast. 3. Acquire control of the sounds and bays, as Chesapeake, Albemarle, Pamlico, Mobile, and Galveston. 4. Assist the army in opening the Mississippi, Arkansas, and other rivers. 5. Destroy all Confederate cruisers and protect the commerce of the United States. To accomplish this great work, most of the vessels abroad were recalled (a slow process in days when no ocean cable existed), more were hastily built, and in time 400 merchantmen and river steamboats were bought and roughly adapted at the navy yards for war service. %455. %The Blockade of the Southern Coast.%--The war on sea was opened (April 19-27,1861) by two proclamations of Lincoln declaring the coast from Virginia to Texas blockaded. This meant that armed vessels were to be stationed off the seaports of the South, and that no ships from any country were to be allowed to go into or out of them. To stop trade with the South was important for three reasons: 1. The South had no ships, no great gun factories, machine shops, or rolling mills, and must look to foreign countries for military supplies. 2. The South raised (in 1860) 4,700,000 bales of cotton, almost all of which was sold to England and the North, and if this cotton should be sent abroad, the South could easily buy with it all the guns, ships, and goods she needed. 3. England was dependent on the South for raw cotton, and would sell for it everything the South wanted in exchange. The blockade, therefore, was to cut off the trade and supplies of the South, and so weaken her. But as England, a great commercial nation, wanted her cotton, it was certain that unless the blockade were rigorous and close, cotton would be smuggled out and supplies sent in.