bguy
Donor
Particularly since it is probably going to take longer than OTL for Southern cotton production to recover. In OTL the South went back to US dollars which drastically reduced inflation, did not have to pay back CSA or state debt incurred during the war, had their railroads rebuilt by the North, got food from Northern charities, had schools built on Northern money, didn't have to spend any of its own money on the military and Union troop pay was spent in the South and in fact will have to maintain a large military at its own expense. None of this will happen with a successful CSA which increases costs for the planters. This costs mean they won't be able to buy tools, machinery, barns, horses and other draft animals and other things as quickly as OTL which will reduce cotton production.
OTOH importing manufactured goods into the CSA will be a lot cheaper than post-war OTL, since the CSA will be behind a much lower tariff wall. (Even the 20% rate we've discussed the CSA adopting would only be about half of what US tariff levels were post-war.)
And wouldn't not having to pay back CSA and state debt incurred during the war actually have hurt the South since most of that money was presumably owed to Southeners which means the cancellation of those debts effectively destroyed a great deal of the South's wealth. (And its not as though the Southerners are actually getting out of paying for the war, since their taxes will still be going to help pay the North's war debt.)