Today, we are pleased to welcome back guest author Neil Chatelain
Passengers on board the California steamer Ariel look on a the CSS Alabama approaches.
US Naval History and Heritage Command
As massive operations spread across the United States during the Civil War, a secret and ever-important campaign was being waged at sea. This was not ironclad warships battling one another or amphibious assaults securing Confederate port cities. For four years, a continuous struggle, fought by sailors, diplomats, and tycoons, waged over control of the Panama Route and the valuable steamers carrying gold from California to Panama to New York. Waged across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean, this campaign would determine which side had access to hard currency, adding security and financial stability to the victor.
By early August, 1863, Ulysses S. Grant had settled into administrative routine following the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi—but Grant wasn’t one to sit idle long. He had set his eye on Mobile, Alabama, which he was “very anxious to take” and which he thought he could do “with comparative ease.”
