It is often wondered how the Southern people held out for so long against such great odds; but it seems to be more of a wonder how the North won the war despite its own greed that placed profits over any sense of patriotism. The quotes below reveal the murky depths of Northern anti-Semitism, while the more tolerant South encouraged the leadership talents of Judah Benjamin and Yulee (Levy).
Bernhard Thuersam, Executive Director Cape Fear Historical Institute Post Office Box 328 Wilmington, NC 28402 www.CFHI.net
More on Northern Wartime Profits, and King Cotton:
(Assistant Secretary of War) "Charles A. Dana wrote Secretary Stanton: "The mania for sudden fortunes made in cotton, raging in a vast population of Jews and Yankees scattered throughout the whole country, and in this town (Memphis) almost exceeding the regular residents...has corrupted and demoralized the army."
Treasury agents were really no more culpable than (US) Army officers (or) Chicago commission-men; Yankees and foreigners could be equally unscrupulous. But when Grant issued his sweeping order of December 17, 1862, expelling from the department "the Jews as a class," he was simply expressing the same prejudice that had led Sherman a little earlier to complain of the "swarms of Jews," and condemn "the Jews and speculators here trading in cotton." An instant outcry came from Jewish citizens. It is possible that the unfortunate involvement of Grant's elderly father, Jesses Grant, with a trade permit to transport cotton through the lines on his last visit to the Army, caused General Grant to change his mind on the issuance of such permits---for the order expelling all Jews from the department was issued immediately after the discovery of Jesse Grant's embarrassing conduct.
In the Spring of 1864, officers of the State of Mississippi informed President Davis that in the wake of Sherman's raid against Meridian, many citizens of Hind County had....traded (cotton) to the Yankees for miscellaneous supplies. Men with access to Confederate government cotton were meanwhile stealing it, removing official marks, and selling it to Northerners in Vicksburg and...yet all the while men equipped with Union permits were slipping it out to Northern buyers.
Ben Butler, who had held command (of New Orleans) in 1862, believed in generous trade policies, and one recipient of his generosity was his brother, Andrew Jackson Butler. Andrew remained an active trader as late as January, 24, 1864, when he wrote Ben that he had drawn $274,683 for nearly 900 hogsheads of tobacco shipped to New York....(Treasury Secretary) Chase's special agent, George S. Denison, who for a time was acting Collector of Customs of the Port of New Orleans...found that a great deal of contraband material was being shipped to the Confederates in return for cotton, and that (US) military men of high rank who lent their cooperation were reaping large harvests. It was clear, he wrote Chase, that Ben Butler "knows everything, controls everything, and should be held responsible for everything."
On the Red River in the spring of 1864, the carnival of trade and speculation reached its height for a single campaign. (General Nathaniel) Banks in New Orleans wrote Lincoln of the increase of questionable trade and...the profits of an illicit commercial intercourse are so gigantic that it is almost impossible to prevent the subornation of subordinate officers...." Banks testified that immediately after the start of the Red River expedition, (Admiral) Porter and the Navy "began to capture cotton on both sides of the river. Marines were furnished with wagon-train, and during the whole of that time they were passing out our lines and returning with loads of cotton...."
Captain John S. Crosby, aide to Banks, testified that he saw some men he thought might be speculators, but believed they really had Washington permits. A conspicuous figure was one McKee, a former partner of Butler's brother, and as to the Navy, he wrote: "They seemed to turn their whole attention there to getting cotton. Every available vessel that could carry a bale of cotton was taken for that purpose..." Officer after officer, in testimony that runs for pages despite sharp questions put by Congressmen, charged that the Navy seized wagons and mules right and left, ranging far into the interior away from the Red River and branding cotton "C.S.A." so that they could with impunity then add "U.S.N."
The Chicago Tribune published a blistering indictment of Colonel Charles E. Hovey of the Thirty-Third Illinois for returning Negroes to their Mississippi masters in exchange for cotton, and for sending out troops in an effort to seize 300 bales near Delta, Mississippi for his own benefit. All along the valley, it declared editorially, "the spectacle is sickening and aggravating beyond description." Some officers were anxious to prolong the war until they had their share.
(The War for the Union, Allan Nevins, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971)
