"Confederate Gold found in DC!"

[Capt Coxetter]

Well, they WERE shy on vessels: but no PORTS?

What about New Orleans, Charleston, St. Augustine, Savannah, Beaufort, Pensacola...how'd the cotton and tobacco, rice and indigo and sugar get exported, and the manufactured goods imported?

And what was it Lincoln blockaded?

Capt. Coxetter

[ole]

Think we went through this some time ago. Of course, they had ports, but the ports had little in the way of facilities to accommodate the kinds of fleets they would need for maintaining a separate country. They hadn't the shipping to manage trade and would have had to depend solely on foreign ships.

New Orleans and Norfolk were probably the best equipped handle the kind of traffic they'd need. Others were thread-needle types--treacherous under most conditions and impossible under some. It was in this spirit I ventured that they had no ports; that is; none that would serve the needs of a new, independent nation.

Sorry 'bout that.
ole

[Capt Coxetter]

Again, I cocede that the Confederacy was short on "bottoms" - commercial vessels to carry the goods - but their use of ports as a separate nation would still have involved, for the most part, agricultural goods going out, and manufactured goods coming in.

Since they were already handling that, I don't understand why they couldn't have continued to handle that, after becoming an independent nation.

Capt. Coxetter

[ole]

Since they were already handling that, I don't understand why they couldn't have continued to handle that, after becoming an independent nation.

Thing is, Cap, that they weren't already handling that--as I understand it. They could get cotton out, but the import market was going to New York and other northern ports. The import market wasn't quickly going to go south. Foremost is the market; and credit.

Mobile, for example was a major port, but cotton had to be barged out to ships because of the danger in actually getting into the harbor.

For the Confederacy to pick up its importation, it would have to improve a port or two, and convince shippers that it would be a good idea to put into those ports. That would have been easier said than done.

Suspect you've been a businessman or, at least, understand the economics of a trader. Risk carries a price. There was no risk putting into New York. There was considerably more risk putting into Savannah. If he is to take the risk, he's going to ask for more for his cargo, as will his insurers. And there's the credit question. Will he be paid? In gold or an ironclad collateral?

The Confederate economy was simply not prepared for independent survival. It had too long depended on, and complained about, northern domination of the trade.

ole