dcharleos
Donor
Also looting National Armories when the rebellion broke out. If those arms were transferred north before or just after the election the war would have been over quick. They also got a lot looting dead bodies. Also about the only thing that increased were munitions production. That is hardly the makings of an industrial juggernaut!
Both true. Also true they were spinning cotton and wool into cloth, that there were armories manufacturing small arms, artillery, and even rolling iron plating for ironclads. They manufactured about 20 ironclads during the war (20x more than they could have in 1860), which is more than Italy did in the same period, if I'm not mistaken. Of course, that's not a 1:1 comparison, as the Italians didn't have a pressing reason to crash manufacture 20 ironclads, and even if they had, they weren't under an embargo and they had a functioning currency with which to do it. Don't want to get bogged down in the weeds; it's just an example.
I think there's an appendix or something in Confederate Industry that has some partial numbers on the textile manufacturing. Check it out if you have the chance.