[Footnote 47:  Encyclopedie, 7th Jan. 1765, art.  ‘Thalassarchie.’]

In forms differing in appearance, but identical in essentials, the efficacy of sea-power was proved again in the American Secession war.  If ever there were hostilities in which, to the unobservant or short-sighted, naval operations might at first glance seem destined to count for little, they were these.  The sequel, however, made it clear that they constituted one of the leading factors of the success of the victorious side.  The belligerents, the Northern or Federal States and the Southern or Confederate States, had a common land frontier of great length.  The capital of each section was within easy distance of this frontier, and the two were not far apart.  In wealth, population, and resources the Federals were enormously superior.  They alone possessed a navy, though at first it was a small one.  The one advantage on the Confederate side was the large proportion of military officers which belonged to it and their fine training as soldiers.  In physique as well as in morale the army of one side differed little from that of the other; perhaps the Federal army was slightly superior in the first, and the Confederate, as being recruited from a dominant white race, in the second.  Outnumbered, less well equipped, and more scantily supplied, the Confederates nevertheless kept up the war, with many brilliant successes on land, for four years.  Had they been able to maintain their trade with neutral states they could have carried on the war longer, and—­not improbably—­have succeeded in the end.  The Federal navy, which was largely increased, took away all chance of this.  It established effective blockades of the Confederate ports, and severed their communications with the outside world.  Indispensable articles of equipment could not be obtained, and the armies, consequently, became less and less able to cope with their abundantly furnished antagonists.  By dominating the rivers the Federals cut the Confederacy asunder; and by the power they possessed of moving troops by sea at will, perplexed and harassed the defence, and facilitated the occupation of important points.  Meanwhile the Confederates could make no reply on the water except by capturing merchant vessels, by which the contest was embittered, but the course of the war remained absolutely unaffected.  The great numbers of men under arms on shore, the terrific slaughter in many battles of a war in which tactical ability, even in a moderate degree, was notably uncommon on both sides, and the varying fortunes of the belligerents, made the land campaigns far more interesting to the ordinary observer than the naval.  It is not surprising, therefore, that peace had been re-established for several years before the American people could be made to see the great part taken by the navy in the restoration of the Union; and what the Americans had not seen was hidden from the sight of other nations.