Blockade Strategy Board The Blockade Strategy Board of the American Civil War , also known variously as the Commission of Conference or as the Du Pont Board , was a group of four men , meeting in the summer of 1861 at the request of the Navy Department , who laid out a preliminary strategy for enforcing the blockade of seceding states that had been proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln . Although the board reported to the Navy Department , only half of its members were sailors . These were Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont , who acted as chairman , and Commander Charles Henry Davis . The other two were Major John Gross Barnard of the US Army and Alexander Dallas Bache of the US Coast Survey and the Smithsonian Institution . The board considered the entire coast held by the Confederate States of America , and recommended how best to complete the blockade . Their reports for the Atlantic seaboard were used , with modifications , to direct the early course of the naval war . Their analysis of the Gulf Coast was not so successful , largely because the detailed oceanographic knowledge that marked the Atlantic reports was not available for the Gulf . Origin . Fort Sumter , in Charleston Harbor , was bombarded on 12 April 1861 , thereby initiating the American Civil War . Following the outbreak of hostilities , on 19 April President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of all ports in the states that had seceded from the Union at that time ; later , after Virginia and North Carolina also joined the Confederacy , his proclamation was modified to include their coastlines as well . The blockade , which existed only on paper at this time , became an integral part of the plan to persuade the seceded states to return to the Union that was proposed by General in Chief Winfield Scott . Scott ' s so - called Anaconda Plan was not formally adopted as an outline strategy to guide the conduct of the war , but the blockade was enforced to the limit of ability of the US Navy as long as the conflict lasted . At the start , the Navy was woefully inadequate to the task of blockading the 3000 miles ( 4800 km ) of Southern shoreline . It had only 90 ships of all types , and only 42 that were powered by steam . A frenzied program of shipbuilding and conversions of existing merchant vessels increased the number to 671 by the end of the war , but as they came into service , their assignments had to be prioritized . The person in Lincoln ' s cabinet most concerned with rationalizing the blockade was Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P . Chase . Treasury ' s Revenue Cutter Service was the agency most familiar with the nation ' s ports , and the knowledge of harbor bottoms held by its Coast Survey would be needed by the naval commanders who patrolled their waters . He persuaded Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to set up a commission to study the entire Southern coast , and on 25 June 1861 Welles issued the necessary orders to Captain ( later Rear Admiral ) Samuel Francis Du Pont . At the same time , he ordered Commander ( later Rear Admiral ) Charles Henry Davis to the board to serve as secretary , and requested that Army Major ( later Major General ) John G . Barnard , chief of the Army Corps of Engineers , and Alexander D . Bache , Superintendent of the Coast Survey , lend their services . Other persons gave advice , but all reports issued by the commission were signed only by these four . The reports . The board delivered its first report , dealing with a southern anchor for the Atlantic blockade , on 5 July . It continued to issue reports throughout the summer . These have been published as parts of the Official Records . Identified by their dates , they are : Effect . The recommendations of the board for the Atlantic blockade were mostly accepted , with modifications , by the Lincoln administration . The capture of Fernandina , proposed as the initial offensive action of the Union Navy , was postponed until after the capture of Hatteras Island and Port Royal . The suggestion that Hatteras Inlet be blocked up was overruled by Flag Officer Silas Stringham and Brig . General Benjamin F . Butler , the men who led the expedition . ( The board had anticipated that its recommendations would not be followed to the letter . In their report , they included the statement that " These plans may undergo some modification in the hands of the person to whom their execution shall be intrusted . " ) The capture of Port Royal Sound also represented a divergence from the board ' s original plan . They had stated a preference for an attack on St . Helena Sound , which was nearer to Charleston and also would have been harder for the Rebels to defend . The natural advantages of Port Royal were so great , however , that the administration chose to take it . Perhaps ironically , Captain ( by then Flag Officer ) Du Pont was selected to lead the naval contingent in the expedition against the harbor . The Gulf blockade diverged much further from board plans for several reasons . One of the most important is the lack of knowledge of the Gulf coast compared with the Atlantic . The hydrography was so imperfectly known that one of the board ' s more emphatic recommendations was that a Coast Survey vessel should be attached to each blockading squadron . ( This recommendation was accepted . The Coast Survey proved to be quite useful throughout the war . ) Although Ship Island was taken in accord with the report of 9 August , the Navy Department used it as the staging ground for David G . Farragut ' s assault on and capture of New Orleans . The board had opposed any immediate move up the Mississippi River , not because it would be undesirable , but because they believed that it could not be done with the weapons at hand . The blockade of the southern extreme of the Texas coast also did not conform to board expectations . The problem there was that the port at Brownsville , at the mouth of the Rio Grande , also served the Mexican community of Matamoros . The international problems associated with the blockade there were exacerbated by the rebellion against the Emperor Maximilian going on in Mexico at the time . Conclusion . Although it may appear that the Blockade Strategy Board had only a minimal effect on the war , it nevertheless deserves respect because it was the first effort by the United States to conduct a war by rational principles , rather than simply reacting to events . As the armed forces did not have an Office of Naval Operations or a General Staff at the time , it served as a rudimentary surrogate . As such , it was an important forerunner of the present - day staff system . Notes . Abbreviations used in these notes :