The Union Blockade was a very strategic and vital plan in the Civil War. This plan probably led to most of the Unions deaths as General Grant, while a great General, would go into war and fight leading to the death of thousands of soldiers at a time while just asking for more from Lincoln. However in my opinion it was a vital phase in the Civil War. I think that the plan is what made it so that they Confederate States needed to stop fighting and that without it the Civil War would of taken a lot longer or would of never worked out.
Without the blockade the Confederates would have successfully been supplied by Britain and France, which would have allowed them to fight harder and better. The main problem for the CSA, apart from being badly outnumbered and outproduced was that they had to spend their limited funds on weapons and supplies that often never reached them, and huge price increases from a lack of vital materials. So their soldiers were often poorly armed, clothed and fed. It's rather remarkable they fought as hard as they did when many didn't have boots, and they had a vast assortment of rifles ranging from expertly made hunting rifles, to squirrel guns. So without the blockade, they would have had more money, better weapons and uniforms, more food and other vital necessities. Frankly if the US hadn't initiated the blockade all of the leaders would have to be court martialled and impeached for stupidity.
Domo is right. The south would have had other countries supplying them had the blockage not held. The blockade was critical because the south got so much of their required items from ships.
Prior to 1860 the economy of the South was based upon the production and exports of the cash-crops of COTTON and TOBACCO. Though others crops were produced and though there was a modest amount of manufacture, it as the exportation of these two crops which drove the Southern and US economy. To the South's detriment too much of their CAPITOL investment was tied up in the of the source of Labor: SLAVES. They had come to rely upon merchants of the North to ship their exports and imports, as well as Northern Bankers to finance the seasonal-cycle of the economy in the South. The nature of the growth-export cycle meant there were times of Cash-flow crisis in the South, which were alleviated by Northern Bankers. That the Northern Shippers cooperated in the blockade was what initially put strength in the economic war upon the South. There were not enough US Navy warships to effectively enforce a blockade early in the war. Even later in the war as more warships were available is was never "water-tight". What was also done was the North managed a combination of a sea-cordon as well as the systematic conquest of the best anchorage of the South. Please recall the occupation of Port Royal, S.C., and New Orleans as a part of this campaign.
