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