When the war began, the greater part of the small navy of the United States was in distant waters--off the coast of Africa, in the Mediterranean, on the Asiatic station--and for some of the ships to receive the news and return, many months were required. Twelve vessels were at home--four in Northern and eight in Southern ports. The navy, like the army, lost many Southern officers by resignation or dismissal. About three hundred who had been educated {67} for its service went over to the Confederacy; but none of them took with them the vessels they had commanded. The Government bought all sorts of merchant craft, mounting guns on some and fitting up others as transports, and had gunboats built on ninety-day contracts. It was a most miscellaneous fleet, whose principal strength consisted in the weakness of its adversary. The first purpose was to complete the blockade of Southern ports. Throughout the war this was never made so perfect that no vessels could pass through; but it was gradually rendered more and more effective. The task was simplified as the land forces, little by little, obtained control of the shore, when a few vessels could maintain an effective blockade from within. But an exterior blockade of a port in the hands of the enemy required a large fleet, operating beyond the range of the enemy's fire from the shore, in a line so extended as to offer occasional opportunities for the blockade-runners to slip past. But blockade-running became exceedingly dangerous. Large numbers of the vessels engaged in it were captured or driven ashore and wrecked. The profit on a single cargo that passed either way in safety was very great, and special vessels for blockade-running were built in England. The Confederate Government enacted a law providing that a certain portion of every cargo thus brought into its ports must consist of arms or ammunition, otherwise vessel and all would be confiscated. This insured a constant supply; and though the Southern soldier was often barefoot and ragged, and sometimes hungry, he never lacked for the most improved weapons that English arsenals could produce, nor was he ever defeated for want of powder. A very large part of the bullets that destroyed the lives and limbs of National troops were cast in England and brought over the sea in blockade-runners. Clothing and equipments, too, for the Confederate armies came from the same source. Often when a burial party went out, after a battle, as they turned over one after another of the enemy's slain and saw the name of a Birmingham manufacturer stamped upon his buttons, it seemed that they must have been fighting a foreign foe. To pay for these things, the Confederates sent out cotton, tobacco, rice, and the naval stores produced by North Carolina forests. It was obvious from the first that any movement that would shut off a part of this trade, or render it more hazardous, would strike a blow at the insurrection. Furthermore, Confederate privateers were already out,