Today the Federal crimping of Confederate capabilities continues with the capture of the Lucy, one of few remaining Confederate blockade runners. The Lucy‘s signal officer, Sidney Lanier, is taken prisoner and transferred to Point Lookout prison in Maryland. Lanier (1842-1881), a native of Macon, Georgia, survives the war, marries, returns to his home town, and…
The Union Navy, in an effort to close Alabama’s Mobile Bay to blockade runners, on August 3 landed 1,500 troops on Dauphin Island and began a siege of Fort Gaines. Confederate defenders have been trying to hold off the Union forces in order to allow time for reinforcements to arrive. Today, however, the Union Navy…
Today off the coast of France the Confederate’s prize naval warship, the CSS Alabama, is sunk by the USS Kearsarge in the Battle of Cherbourg. With the sinking of the Alabama, what little hope the Confederacy had left on the high seas is gone, as virtually the entire Southern coast is effectively blockaded by the…