USS ALASKA
Captain
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2016
For the buyers - a high risk / high return investment opportunity...for the sellers - a way to raise cash for other endeavors.
Cheers,
USS ALASKA
Cheers,
USS ALASKA
Are you really saying that the Texas economy needed to have slaves run through the blockade? I thought the place was awash with refugee slaves.If we assume that guns and munitions were run into Texas during the course of the Civil War, that reveals the problem.
Why are we focused on guns and munitions, when what Texas needed was railroad equipment, locomotives and based on their economy, enslaved workers?
Slaves could be walked into Texas, certainly. But for four years, with a large part of male population of Texas occupied elsewhere, Texas is cutoff from growth.Are you really saying that the Texas economy needed to have slaves run through the blockade? I thought the place was awash with refugee slaves.
Locomotives and railroad equipment can get fighting me to the place threatened by the enemy, but those troops need guns and munitions with which to fight. There were operating railroads in Texas, but a serious shortage of weapons -- so import them.
I have not had time to read this in detail, but from scanning it, I'm led to believe that they suffers from too much knowledge. They know the weaknesses that showed up and argue that Davis should have anticipated those very weaknesses and worked to prevent them. For example, he says the railroads deteriorated during the war, so Davis should have bought imported railroad iron and machinery early in the war, before the blockade became a problem. How would Davis, a non-railroad man, know what to buy? The railroad companies believed the war would be short and saw no need to rush orders to buy railroad material -- why should Davis have had better vision than the railroad professionals?THE “CONFEDERATE” BLOCKADE OF THE SOUTH
by ROBERT B. EKELUND, JR , AND MARK THORNTON
"...However, while the presence of the blockade fleet was certainly a necessary condition to shutting down international trade, it was not sufficient. The blockade fleet made it more costly to transport goods, but the percentage of blockade-runners that were actually captured by the Union blockade fleet was small. Important research has now shown that the Union blockaders posed little threat to the blockade-runners. The blockade fleet did have an economic incentive to capture blockade-runners because the “prize” would be divided between the officers and crew. However, those same incentives meant that the blockaders did not want to harm the blockade-running ships for fear of destroying valuable prizes, particularly the outgoing vessels that were loaded with cotton. International law protected captured members of the crew, who were typically released in port and available for more blockade running. The risk of death or injury faced by blockade-running crews was significantly less than those faced by Confederate soldiers (Neely 1986)..."
http://www.mises.net/sites/default/files/qjae4_1_2.pdf
953
Cheers,
USS ALASKA
I agree with @DaveBrt . Initially there was well founded optimism that either the US would concede independence or the British would intervene well before material shortages affected the outcome of the war.I have not had time to read this in detail, but from scanning it, I'm led to believe that they suffers from too much knowledge. They know the weaknesses that showed up and argue that Davis should have anticipated those very weaknesses and worked to prevent them. For example, he says the railroads deteriorated during the war, so Davis should have bought imported railroad iron and machinery early in the war, before the blockade became a problem. How would Davis, a non-railroad man, know what to buy? The railroad companies believed the war would be short and saw no need to rush orders to buy railroad material -- why should Davis have had better vision than the railroad professionals?
They say Davis should have bought naval engines right away, but did he know what specific engines to buy? Were naval engines more important than rifles, cannon, ammunition, etc? This is what Davis tried to buy, with no government organized to buy or pay for anything in Europe.
Maybe they can persuade me, but I don't think they can make the argument the Davis did a bad job buying the correct material during the period of weak blockade.
I think that is a bit strong -- Memphis, New Orleans, Nashville, Norfolk captured. Not captured: Atlanta, Richmond, Petersburg, Charleston, Savannah, Macon, Mobile, Montgomery, Augusta, Columbia and plenty of 2nd rate cities, like Knoxville and Chattanooga.I agree with @DaveBrt .
By June 1862 most of cities in the slave states were occupied, permanently, by the US.