“The South seemingly had enough guns and soldiers to put up quite a fight, so I wasn’t getting the purpose of the blockade. What was it blockading that mattered to the armies fighting on the land?”
The Confederacy imported 500,000 Enfield pattern rifle muskets from England and an additional 200,000 long arms from other European countries . Fifteen percent of Confederate Army field artillery were imported from Europe. The South had to import all of the chloroform and ether used by Confederate army doctors. In 1864, they even had to start importing uniforms for the Army. By 1865
20% of the Confederate Army was still equipped with 69. cal smoothbore muskets because the Confederacy could manufacture or import enough rifle muskets for its army.
It was a war over that European money stream.