The Cotton Run

ForewordThe American Civil War was not only a conflict that pitted brother against brother, state against state, American against American, Union against Confederate, Johnny Reb against Billy Yank. It wasn’t only a struggle in support of preserving slavery, liberty, or the Union, although these motives were significant and honorable. The American Civil War was, for the most part, a fight for business interests and new markets. History unfailingly shows that there’s money to be made in war, and the American Civil War was no exception. The North had the advantage, the means to wage war. They had more people, more railroad tracks, more factories, more steel, and a much stronger economy. For example, the Gross National Product of the entire Confederacy was equal to less than one-quarter of New York State. The Confederacy, however, did have cotton, the commodity that had blessed the Southern states with rich bountiful crops for several decades. With King Cotton, the South thought it could rule the world. Before the hostilities of 1861-1865, the South’s top customers were the Northern states, France, and England, the latter having one in four of its population employed in the textile industry. Lacking the means and power to produce enough manufactured products itself, the Confederacy depended on imports to anchor its economy. Shipping was crucial. The exchange of cotton for outside goods was the lifeblood of the South. Within two days of the Confederates’ firing on Fort Sumter to initiate the war, President Abraham Lincoln announced a naval blockade on the Confederate coastline with the intention of starving the fledgling nation into submission. The Southerners reacted the only way they could. With no industrial base and no merchant fleet of its own to speak of, the Confederacy relied heavily on British manpower and shipping interests. Immediately, the art of blockade-running sprang up, ushering in an infamous era of adventure, danger, greed, and deceit. From a handful of Southern ports, courageous sea skippers and their crews (a sprinkling of British and Rebel officers and sailors) ran the blockade, their ships stacked high with bales of cotton. They set sail for neutral ports to transfer their cargoes and return with military and domestic goods, reaping a hefty profit along the way. The spring of 1863 saw four of the original Confederate ports still open: Galveston, Texas; Mobile, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; and Wilmington, North Carolina. The most strategic of these ports was Wilmington, for it was the closest by rail to the Confederate capital of Richmond and the crucial fighting in Virginia. The chief depot for Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, the Wilmington docks carried the hopes of the Confederacy. From there, the neutral cargo-transfer destinations of the Bahamas and Bermuda were only three days away. These ports were the main sources of the South’s communication with the outside world. “Without firing a shot, without unsheathing a blade, we can bring the whole world to its knees before us. With equanimity, if needs be, the South could refrain for a year, or two years or more, from cultivating a basketful of cotton. But what would be the result? There can be no doubt. Old England would tumble from her proud industrial perch, the whole of civilization toppling with her, joining in her ruin. No sir, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dare make war on it. Cotton is King.” Senator James H. Hammond of South Carolina, March 4, 1858