GDG- Re: CS supply

[Biggsk at aol.com]

David Smith writes:

>>>>You raise excellent points about Britain during the  Civil War.  I hadn't 
realized they had become importers of corn;  somewhere, there must be a story 
in there with all the furor over the Corn  Laws in Britain in the 1830s and 
1840s, but I don't remember enough of my  British history from then.>>>>

Probably so.  In my research into how things from the interior of  America 
got to world markets (and other US markets for that matter), I  have had to roll 
the clock back to the beginnings of the 19th Century and  once you do that 
you see that New Orleans is destined for economic  greatness.  By 1860 it was 
America's largest exporting port (more so than  NYC) as well as the South's 
largest city.  This was due to the massive  power of the river system and getting 
things to markets, in particular food  crops.  The ocean going steamers and 
sailing ships ported in NO - and the  flat boats and river steamers (some 1000, 
again according to the 1860 Census)  plied the river and its major tributaries 
bringing things to markets.
 
When British Gen, Packenham stated in late 1814 when planning his New  
Orleans campaign, "whoever controls New Orleans and the Mississippi River  controls 
America," he was not only very knowledgeable but also very fore-sighted  for 
it was massively more important in 1860 than 1814!!!!  This is why  Lincoln 
added a Mississippi River component to the Anaconda Plan of  Scott's.  New 
Orleans exported tons of food all over the world before the  Civil War and was the 
Number One port for salt importation - despite the fact  that the USA also had 
enormous salt sources as it was (in its three forms of  extraction - saline 
wells, rock salt, sea salt).  Salt was, of course not  only a food preservative, 
but also crucial in the tanning of leather.
 
Much Midwestern crops did not have access to railroads as yet and so the  
rivers were the only way to get these crops to markets.  On my tours of the  
Henry-Donelson Campaign when we start at Cairo, IL, I explain that 50 per cent  of 
America's rivers flow past where the Ohio and Mississippi come together  
thanks to the extensive tributary system.  Even smaller rivers had  steamboats 
working them at this time - smaller steamboats.  Some rivers  already had a lock 
& dam system (Kentucky's Green River to Bowling Green was  one) in place that 
allowed for these smaller steamboats.
 
Lastly, we have this vision that most Americans did not travel much back  
then and I will state that this depended on where you lived.  If you had  rail or 
river connections, traveling was pretty common.  I have seen  steamboat 
schedules in period newspapers as well as rail schedules.  For  example, from the 
Pensacola, FL area, there was a series of coastal steamers  that ran from there 
to Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans and ending at Galveston, TX -  four per day in 
each direction!!!!  Besides moving people, they moved cargo  and food stuffs. 
 Then, you could see the steamers from Mobile into the  interior of Alabama, 
again several per day.  This is but a microcosm of how  much people and 
commerce really moved about back then.
 
Britain was well-connected with America on many large levels before the  war.
 
 


>>>>There was another really compelling reason the  British did not get 
involved in the American Civil War, however:   Canada.  With its very long border 
and its extremely limited military  forces, Canada was basically indefensible, 
and it was important to the British  to keep.  During the Trent crisis, the 
British military actually drew up  war plans - they realized that through the 
British navy, it would be very easy  for them to bombard and reduce any US port 
on the eastern seaboard, including  New York.  But the American response would 
have been an immediate  invasion of Canada, and they had no effective 
response to that.  I think  Seward more or less made this threat explicit to them.  
Cooler heads  prevailed.>>>

Yep - they did send troops to Canada just in case but I think the US was a  
bit naive to think that while waging a major war with the Confederates that 
they  could have had enough to deal with the Royal Navy!!!!  They were very much  
the world's most powerful fleet and while their army lacked the manpower the 
US  Army could draw on and get into place where needed and quickly, the loss 
of  a major US port or two should have offset  Canada.
 
Also - keep in mind that the US is 0-2 against Canada in war!!!  (grin)
 
By the same token and at the same time, France, in open violation of the  
Monroe Doctrine, was messing about in Mexico, much to the delight of the CSA I  
would add (they had a clear and open blockade running port in Matamoros that  
could not be closed by the US Navy).  And yet this did not seem to draw off  
any US military to confront France.  The Confederates were hoping that  Napoleon 
III would come down on  their side - and he was more than willing  to do so 
as a quid pro quo for Mexico - but would not do so until the British  Lion 
moved first.
 
All of this surely made for very interesting times for not only those that  
lived in them but also for us later Americans to ponder.
 
Greg Biggs






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