Member Review Norfolk

[wausaubob]

From Trading With the Enemy Philip Leigh Westholme Publishing 2014. Beginning at page 93 author Leigh tells an important story about how Dix and Butler abused the blockade by permitting trade at Norfolk. He ably demonstrates that the nearly simultaneous dismissal of Butler and the US capture of Fort Fisher was vital to ending the war, ending the killing and ending the destruction.
President Lincoln tolerated many things that he should not have tolerated, because his electoral position was subject to doubt.

 

[Lubliner]

If I remember right, Norfolk was a special case due to the deprivation of it remaining citizens, while occupied by the Union. The commanders sought advice and special permissions from Washington to rectify the problem, didn't they?
Lubliner.

 

[Lubliner]

I found some information regarding the import and export trade for Norfolk in Series 1, Volume 8, beginning on page 19. Rear-Admiral S. P. Lee inquired to Secretary Welles about passes being permitted previously from Rear-Admiral Goldsborough for shingles and lumber, for the Norfolk Gas Company for coal, on Sept. 14, 1862. The passes were denied promptly by Welles, and also again on September 16, 1862 about permission from General Viele for passes to Baltimore for merchandise under authority of General Dix at Fort Monroe. Welles responded on the 17th stating no passes for trading were allowed in blockaded regions.
Lubliner.

 

[wausaubob]

1. How much of the supplies being traded for cotton at Norfolk were diverted south in the Dismal Swamp area, or were filtered through multiple sticky hands in North Carolina? How much made it to Richmond, especially after Warren's people cut the direct route from Weldon to Petersburg?
2. Every 1,000 bales of cotton that made it to New York and/or Liverpool decreased the speculative value of cotton and decreased the incentive of private companies to run the blockade for a load of cotton bales. As the Confederacy added more regulations to the blockade runners, how many captains simply quit and went back to regular merchant shipping? And as Semmes drove Yankee ownership out of world merchant services, how many English captains chose to turn to safer, if less profitable, normal merchant shipping?

 

[DaveBrt]

1. How much of the supplies being traded for cotton at Norfolk were diverted south in the Wismal Swamp area, or were filtered through multiple stick hands in North Carolina? How much made it to Richmond, especially after Warren's people cut the direct route from Weldon to Petersburg?
2. Every 1,000 bales of cotton that made it to New York and/or Liverpool decreased the speculative value of cotton and decreased the incentive of private companies to run the blockade for a load of cotton bales. As the Confederacy added more regulations to the blockade runners, how many captains simply quit and went back to regular merchant shipping? And as Semmes drove Yankee ownership out of world merchant services, how many English captains chose to turn to safer, if less profitable, normal merchant shipping?

Here is part of your answer:

NA, SWR 2-4-65

 

[wausaubob]

Here is part of your answer:

NA, SWR 2-4-65

That is evidence that the situation was very complex. In another source which I cannot recall precisely, Dick Taylor was asking George Thomas if shoe making tools could be permitted to pass through the blockade. As the letter you cite is dated February 1865, it hints that the federal tolerance of cotton trading was based in part of the view that there was no purpose in unnecessary suffering.

 

[wausaubob]

Here is part of your answer:

NA, SWR 2-4-65

The administration was taking small steps to returning to normal trade relations.