On the Blockade

On the Blockade is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys in his Civil War naval series. The Union blockade of Confederate ports was one of the central naval operations of the Civil War, with the United States Navy maintaining a continuous blockade of the southern coast across the entire war to prevent Confederate trade with European powers. The novel uses the blockade duty as the framework for the protagonist’s naval service and the various dangers and moral tests of the genre.

Oliver Optic produced naval and military fiction set in the Civil War across multiple novels and connected series. The standard pro Union framing of his Civil War fiction reflects the publisher market and the wider American cultural context of the post war decades.

For scholars of nineteenth century American children’s literature, of how the Civil War naval operations were translated into adventure fiction for the young, or of the wider career of Oliver Optic, the Civil War naval series is essential. Many of his books are now in the public domain.