Naval Buildup Against English Threat
From the outbreak of the Civil War, the Lincoln Administration seemed to feel that the British Government's sympathies lay with the Confederacy. The Trent Affair further strained Anglo-American relations, and the terrible toll exacted from Union shipping by commerce raiding Confederate cruisers built in England forced the Union Navy to make contingency plans for what appeared to be an increasingly likely war with England.
With the Royal Navy considerably more powerful than its American counterpart, the United States Navy decided that—should open hostilities with Queen Victoria's empire break out—it would adopt its traditional strategy of preying on British merchant shipping. To prepare for such an eventually, the Federal Navy Department embarked upon a program of developing very fast seagoing steamships capable of overtaking all ships they might pursue and of escaping from any they might wish to elude.
Read more about this topic: USS Ammonoosuc (1864)
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