How was the Civil War fought using navies of both the North and the South?

Question - How was the Civil War fought using navies of both the North and the South?

Answer - In April 1863, the Union navy turned with force on the Southern port cities when it took on the defenses of Charleston, South Carolina. The Confederates were well prepared having had two years to position guns, floating obstructions and torpedoes and the attack failed. Charleston did not fall until the war was nearly ended. After the debacle at Charleston, two other major port cities were targeted: Mobile, Alabama the last major port in the Gulf and Wilmington, North Carolina the last and most important Atlantic gateway in the Confederacy. Mobile was defended by two large forts but these fell under Farragut's assault in August 1864. In January, 1865, after a failed first attempt, the largest Union fleet ever assembled attacked Fort Fisher the key to Wilmington's defense and the stronghold fell. Its loss deprived Confederate General Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia of a major supply source and contributed directly to the end of the war. While the war rumbled along on the home front, the Confederates outfitted a series of commerce raiders, vessels such as Sumter, Alabama, and Shenandoah to attack Union merchant shipping worldwide. These ships were acquired by Confederate agents in Europe and most never entered a Southern port. Alabama, under Raphael Semmes, was the most famous. Destroying over 60 ships in a 21-month cruise and sending the Union shipping interests into a frenzy, Alabama was finally confronted by the Union cruiser Kearsarge off Cherbourg, France in 1864. In one of history's last classic one-on-one sea duels, the famed Confederate raider was sunk by accurate Union gunfire. Finally, the last official act of the Confederate States of America was a naval one. The Confederate raider Shenandoah, far at sea in Pacific waters, only learned of the Civil War's end four months after the Confederate armies surrendered. Shenandoah finally lowered her flag in England on November 6, 1865.