In their efforts to win popular sympathy and combat Northern propaganda, the Confederates bad established such agencies of publicity as their resources would permit. English writers were employed in the newspaper and magazine field; spokesmen in Parliament were sought; pamphlets and books were published and freely distributed; news agencies were presented with prepared material; and a special newspaper, the Index, was set up by the chief Confederate propaganda agent, Henry Hotze. Through these channels, and through the utterings of Southern diplomats, foreign readers were advised of the unconquerable strength of the Confederate cause. It was pointed out that the Confederacy comprised "13 separate and sovereign States, with 870,610 square miles of territory and twelve millions of population., The historical background of the Southern movement, the confederate nature of the Union, the legal right of secession, were duly elaborated. The vastness of the South, its enormous stretches of arable land, its advantages of soil, rivers, minerals, and climate, were stressed, and its attractiveness as a market for European goods was emphasized. The cardinal importance of cotton was shown by impressive statistics. Confederate military strength was emphasized; Southern victories were featured; Union victories denied or disparaged. The perfidy and hypocrisy of the Lincoln government were exhibited; and incidents such as Butler's "woman order" (misunderstood in Europe) were represented as typical and as if directed from Washington. The United States in general was stigmatized as "a country, if it deserves to be so called, which is capable of committing the most unscrupulous atrocities . . . ; a country that is a reproach to . . . civilization........." Slavery was given little attention; but the ideals of self-government, resistance to oppression, and independence were presented as the issues at stake. The impossibility of conquering the South was constantly pointed out. The sections were represented as psychologically incompatible. Sometimes the arguments in this field included expressions by Southern leaders as to essential terms to be insisted on in the making of peace and conditions that would follow when independence had been achieved. It was stated that no peace could be accepted without including within the Confederate States the commonwealth-, of Maryland) Kentucky, and Missouri and the territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Again it was brought out that, after independence, the "Northern States . . . must be to us henceforth as though they were without a place upon the earth's surface. . . . Let the Northern shipowners starve rather than allow them to convey one pound of our staples to Europe. In this manner we shall wield an overpowering and humiliating influence over them." Mindful of foreign resentment against filibustering in the past, the Southerners were careful to state that, once independence was achieved, there would be no wish for foreign territory; schemes of expansion would disappear; and, moreover, the "balance of power" in North America would be assured. A fundamental motive in Southern diplomacy was reliance upon the economic magic of "King Cotton." Confident of the commanding importance of the cotton industry upon which nearly five million people in England were dependent, an industry which "appeared to underlie the whole industrial and economic system of Great Britain," 3 the Southerners elevated the King Cotton theory to an importance comparable to that of the state-rights doctrine, and "King Cotton became a cardinal principle upon which all the men who were to lead the South out of the Union and to guide its destiny through the Civil War were almost unanimously agreed." David Christy had argued the controlling importance of cotton as a factor in international affairs in his book Cotton Is King: or Slavery in the Light of Political Economy (I855), and Owsley shows how the "phrase was soon on every tongue" when in 1860 there appeared another volume under the awkward title Cotton Is King and Pro-slavery Arguments, comprising Cbristy's book with a collection of arguments by various Southern writers in defense of slavery. The subject was naturally taken up by DeBow in his Review; and the well-known doctrine took its place as one of the orthodox thought patterns of the Southland. This belief in the wizardry of quick results from cotton control produced what has been called an "attempt at economic coercion" in the Southern cotton embargo of 1861. Eager to translate economic theory into solid fact the advocates of the embargo sought to obtain an embargo law by the Confederate Congress; but they failed to obtain any effective legislation. The problem was therefore handled as a matter of state law and even more of public agitation, reinforced by extralegal pressure from citizen committees. The extraordinary difficulty of getting cotton out of Southern ports in i86i justified in part the Southern representations abroad that an "air-tight embargo" on the export of cotton had been put into effect. In addition there was a widespread effort of Southerners to cut down the supply by restricted planting and even by deliberate burning of cotton as a patriotic duty. As a result of this campaign only "about a million and a half bales were produced [in 1862] as compared with four and a half million for 1861." Against the Union blockade of the South the Confederates made constant complaint. It was urged that the blockade hurt both the South and Europe and was therefore a major grievance, since by the Southern interpretation it was illegal. On the other hand this very illegality depended upon the contention that the blockade was ineffective; and on this basis the Confederate leaders accused the Lincoln government of using a discredited weapon-a "paper blockade"-while they also upbraided European governments for supporting the blockade by considering it regular, recognizing it in international law, and submitting when European vessels were caught and condemned for its violation. On this point of ineffectiveness the Confederates presented impressive data. Secretary Benjamin, referring to the situation at the outset of the war, stated that the United States was operating the blockade with an average of one ship for every three hundred miles of coast. He estimated that Charleston was conducting in 1863 an annual foreign trade of $21,000,000, whereas in 1858 its annual commerce bad amounted to less than $19,000,000. He added that steamers operated by the Confederate ordnance bureau bad made forty-four voyages through the blockade between January and September, 1863, without a single loss by capture. Protesting against international recognition of a blockade that guarded "seven ports" over an extent of three thousand miles of coast with "189 openings , he sharply criticized the "contradictory" statements of the British foreign office on the matter, suggesting that Britain had "some unconfessed interest" in the continuance of the blockade. The blockade was, in fact, "far from a completely effective measure The Confederates smuggled in vast supplies of "food, boots, buttons, cloth for uniforms, thread, stockings, civilian clothes, medicines, drugs, salt, boiler iron, shoes, steel, copper, zinc, and chemicals." More important, the South was able to import much of its firearms, artillery, and ammunition from Europe. The most careful student of the subject concludes that "All told, . . . 260,000 to 330,000 or more stand of small-arms were imported by the Confederacy." Surprisingly few of the blockade-runners were seized by the Union fleet. One vessel, the Kate, "chalked up 44 trips through the blockade." Owsley summarizes as follows: "It seems from all the evidence that the captures ran about thus: 1861, not more than 1 in 10; 1862, not more than 1 in 8; 1863, not more than 1 in 4; 18 64, not more than 1 in 3; 1865. . . . 1 in 2. This is an average for the war of about 1 capture in 6." As to profits of blockade-running it has been shown that the receipts of the Banshee No. z for one trip amounted to 85,000 Pounds Sterling, and that two successful trips would serve to compensate the owners for the loss of the vessel on the third. It was but natural that Benjamin should denounce such a blockade as a fictitious affair; while Owsley concludes that Lincoln, to "gain a doubtful advantage," "flew in the face of all American precedents" and "vitiated the principles in the Declaration of Paris........." In answer to all this it has been maintained on the Union side that the cargoes brought in were "not such as either to disprove the efficiency of the blockade or to supply the needs of the Confederacy." Statistics which emphasize the number of blockade-runners that succeeded as compared to those that were lost do not tell the whole story. It should be remembered that the Civil War blockade-runner was a small specialized ship of low hull and light construction, and that few vessels of the type that bore the bulk of ocean commerce were concerned in the traffic. The full effect of the blockade is to be measured not merely in terms of the stoppage of blockade-runners, but even more in terms of the many large ships that did not even attempt to brave the blockading squadrons. The facts that Confederate cruisers did not have access to their own ports, that Southern-bound cargoes were capturable anywhere on the ocean, and that great dependence was placed upon neutral ports such as Nassau and Matamoros are significant of the power of the blockade. It is to be noted that English importations of cotton dropped heavily during 1861 and 1862 and that, as L. B. Schmidt has pointed out, the Union blockade "threatened the English manufacturers with a cotton famine." One may conclude that, while allowing extensive evasion, the imperfect blockade was a solid factor in Northern sea power which increased in strength as the war progressed ands which came well within Earl Russell's definition by being "sufficient to create an evident danger" where attempts were made to enter Confederate ports. To put the case in different words, it did not comport with Russell's definition of an ineffective blockade as one "sustained by a notoriously inadequate force. Source: The Civil War and Reconstruction by Randall and Donald. (Parts of Chapters 28 and 29) --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.394 / Virus Database: 224 - Release Date: 10/03/2002