[1] It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War against the United States's Union Navy.

It was ineffective in these tasks, as the coastal blockade by the United States Navy reduced trade by the South to 5 percent of its pre-war levels.

Additionally, the control of inland rivers and coastal navigation by the US Navy forced the south to overload its limited railroads to the point of failure.

The surrender of the CSS Shenandoah in Liverpool, England, marked the end of the Civil War and the Confederate Navy's existence.

The C. S. Navy eventually grew to 101 ships to meet the rise in naval conflicts and threats to the coast and rivers of the Confederacy.

As a result, the Confederacy captured a large supply of much-needed war materials, including heavy cannon, gunpowder, shot, and shell.

The U.S. Navy had torched Merrimack's superstructure and upper deck, then scuttled the vessel; it would have been immediately useful as a warship to their enemy.

On the first day of that battle Virginia, and the James River Squadron, aggressively attacked and nearly broke the Union Navy's sea blockade of wooden warships, proving the effectiveness of the ironclad concept.

The last Confederate surrender took place in Liverpool, United Kingdom on November 6, 1865, aboard the commerce raider CSS Shenandoah when her flag (battle ensign) was lowered for the final time.

Mallory was experienced as an admiralty lawyer and had served for a time as the chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee of the United States Senate.

Using Charleston-based importer and exporter Fraser Trentholm, who had offices in Liverpool, Commander Bulloch immediately ordered six steam vessels.

Despite the detailed naval regulations issued, minor variations in the flags were frequently seen, due to different manufacturing techniques employed, suppliers used, and the flag-making traditions of each southern state.

Both acts granted the president power to issue letters of marque and detailed regulations as to the conditions on which letters of marque should be granted to private vessels, the conduct and behavior of the officers and crews of such vessels, and the disposal of such prizes made by privateer crews.

Therefore, privateering was constitutionally legal in both the United States and the Confederacy, as well as Portugal, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Germany.

However, the United States did not acknowledge the Confederacy as an independent country and denied the legitimacy of any letters of marque issued by its government.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared all medicines to the Confederacy to be contraband and any captured Confederate privateers were to be hanged as pirates.

Despite a lack of materials (especially iron and engines) and shipbuilding facilities, the Confederacy was able to construct at least twenty ironclads that were commissioned and put into operation during the war.

The most famous of them was the screw sloop-of-war CSS Alabama, a warship secretly built for the Confederacy in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, United Kingdom.

CSS Alabama 's crew was mostly from Liverpool, and the cruiser never once dropped anchor in a Confederate port, though she sank a blockading Union gunboat off the coast of Texas.

A similar raider, CSS Shenandoah, fired the last shot of the American Civil War in late June 1865; she did not strike her colors and surrender until early November 1865, in Liverpool, England five months after the conflict had ended.