Over the beach - University of Oregon

Navy, the Army engineers responsible for the planning and execution of
the Army part of the landing came away with experience that would be
refected in Army waterborne operations during the Civil War. 11
Although frequently marred by erratic strategic direction, divided
counsels, and poor inter-Service cooperation, major joint amphibious and
riverine operations were carried out during the Civil War. The initial Union
strategy was one of coastal blockade combined with a large expedition down
the Mississippi River. The latter operation never took place as originally
conceived, but the coastal blockade, including the seizure of lodgments at
key points along the Confederate coast, was carried out much in the way
it was planned by the 1861 Blockade Board, which was chaired by Navy
Captain Samuel F. DuPont and included Army Engineer representation. 12
Early amphibious operations included the capture of forts at the entrance to
the Hatteras inlet in North Carolina by Navy Flag Offcer Silas Stringham
and Major General Benjamin F. Butler in August 1861 and the seizure
of Port Royal off Hilton Head, South Carolina, by Captain DuPont and
Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman in November of that year. 13
Early in the war, Major General George B. McClellan proposed a
plan to use joint operations to penetrate the Confederacy by way of the
great river systems and the coast to seize key railway junctions and thus
paralyze the Southern transportation and communications systems. The
strategy was never fully implemented, although McClellan did arrange for
the activation of a special amphibious division comprised largely of New
England seamen and commanded by Major General Ambrose E. Burnside.
Initially operating with Army-owned and chartered ships and then in conjunction
with naval forces under Flag Offcer Louis M. Goldsborough,
Burnside’s Coast Division captured Roanoke Island and New Berne on
the Carolina coast in February 1862 before being diverted for operations
against Richmond. 14
The capture of New Orleans by forces of Butler and Navy Flag Offcer
David G. Farragut in April 1862 and joint Army and Navy operations on
the Western rivers in 1862 and 1863 were vital contributions to Union
victory. 15 The Army operated transports on the Western rivers throughout
the war and, until they were turned over to the Navy in October 1862,
maintained a small force of gunboats. The Western theater also saw the
operation of a unique Army amphibious force—the brainchild of Lieutenant
Colonel Alfred W. Ellet, a self-taught engineer, who had long argued for
swift, unarmored vessels with reinforced rams that could destroy enemy
ships. In March 1862 Ellet persuaded Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton
to allow him to outft a fotilla of seven paddle steamers with armored
14