Different King Cotton

This may have been discussed on the board before, but I was thinking about what if the CSA had listened to Judah Benjamin and Alec Stephens an bought the cotton that was available and sold it in Europe earlier in the war, say late 1861.

Would the planters have gone for selling their 4.5 million 1861 bales of cotton for treasury notes?

Would Fraser, Trenhom and Co. been able to move that much cotton at once?

Would the proceeds from the sale of this cotton been enough to buy a Navy and a modern army?

My idea was that the CSA pay for the cotton to the planters with notes, ship the cotton on smaller faster ships to Nassau, where Fraser & Co would transship to London and fill the smaller ships with supplies of war. For the CSA they are buying the bales with basically debt and selling it for specie which will stay in Europe.

Planters receive currenct of a kind, CSA gets a modern military and Fraser & Co make a handsome profit.

If this had happened, would it have been enough to end the war?
Zane
 

mowque

Banned
South might have been a bit more well-prepared, but it wouldn't make much a difference in the long run.
 
British warehouses are full to bursting with cotton at the outbreak of war; the last two or three years have been bumper crops, and they've been stocking up just in case. If the Confederacy tries to move all its available cotton fast early in the war, they're going to have to settle for a quite crap price, which makes the planters reluctant to go along with such a scheme.

For good or ill, one can't simply buy a Navy for any amount of money. Even if the British are prepared to sell completed ships (which is reasonably likely), the Confederates will have a devil of a time taking delivery of them and only have so many experienced sailors and marines to go around.

Confederate logistics are terrible, because Southron gentlemen do not concern themselves with such things. Lee's army was on short rations and barefoot while there were warehouses full of materiel and food in Richmond nobody seriously tried to deliver. Throwing more cash at the problem is not likely to produce much positive effect.
 
This may have been discussed on the board before, but I was thinking about what if the CSA had listened to Judah Benjamin and Alec Stephens an bought the cotton that was available and sold it in Europe earlier in the war, say late 1861.

Would the planters have gone for selling their 4.5 million 1861 bales of cotton for treasury notes?

Would Fraser, Trenhom and Co. been able to move that much cotton at once?

Would the proceeds from the sale of this cotton been enough to buy a Navy and a modern army?

My idea was that the CSA pay for the cotton to the planters with notes, ship the cotton on smaller faster ships to Nassau, where Fraser & Co would transship to London and fill the smaller ships with supplies of war. For the CSA they are buying the bales with basically debt and selling it for specie which will stay in Europe.

Planters receive currenct of a kind, CSA gets a modern military and Fraser & Co make a handsome profit.

If this had happened, would it have been enough to end the war?
Zane

Given that the Confederacy was turning away thousands of volunteers in the first year of the war because they couldn't arm them, a scenario such as you described could have made a great deal of difference. You could conceivably see the Confederate armies available in 1861 and 1862 as much as double in size, possibly giving the Confederacy the manpower it needed to effectively defend the Western Theater during that period.

If the string of constant catastrophes in the West can be halted, British and French recognition becomes more likely. And while British and French recognition, by itself, may not lead to Confederate independence, it does create conditions which make achievement of independence much more likely.
 
Even if the CSA has to take a low price for the cotton, they are still getting specie for the cotton while purchasing it for paper. In other words they may lose a little per pound but they make it up in volume. As far as logistics, you move the cotton into Wilmington, then move it up the Wilmington & Weldon to Richmond. The ANV suddenly is much better equiped than in the OTL.
 
Oh by the way, as far as the CSA moving the entire crop quickly, I think the logistics of moving across the Atlantic as well as transshipment are going to make this a year round adventure, not a sudden movement that will depress the prices. We are talking about 4.5 million bales (more than 2 billion pounds).
 
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