At first glance the difference between the resources of the United States and the Confederacy may seem to have been overwhelmingly in favor of the United States.
Over 2,300,000 men served in the Union and Southern armies. The North mustered about 1,500,000 soldiers as against 800,000 on the side of the South. These total numbers vary but are a good figure.
However, the South had the use of some 4,000,000 Negro slaves who did practically all the farming during the war. The negroes also did valuable military work such as building the fortifications at New Orleans, Vicksburg, Richmond and Charleston.
The North had twice as much land under cultivation as the South, 105,000,000 acres as against 57,000,000 acres. The North had 22,000 miles of railroad track in inked systems while the South had only 9,000 miles that were not well connected. The North had far more industrial strength; 1,300,000 workers against the South's 190,000.
These apparent advantages of the North against the South were, however, somewhat deceptive as it should be remembered that the South had at the beginning of the War, a far better group of trained officers, and a number of really brilliant general officers.
The Northern armies were composed mainly of raw recruits and draftees who came mostly from the farms of the North. Southerners were accustomed to riding and the Southern cavalry forces were, until very late in the war, superior in movement and effectiveness.
The Confederate Navy, while severely handicapped by lack of material, inadequate organization, and poor shipyard facilities, however, did have men in charge who perhaps conceived the first ideas of a modern navy in attempts to construct and operate submarines and ships protected by armor such as the Confederate Ram Virginia and others.
The North certainly had its troubles in financing the war but the South had a much greater problem.
The South began the war without a government treasury and had no financial policy based on experience.
When Louisiana seceded in January 1861 Southern forces took over the U.S. Mint at New Orleans and confiscated the bullion kept by the Mint at a state bank depository. This move formed the nucleus of the Confederate treasury funds, which were then bolstered up by Southern bankers suspending specie payments and who turned their coins over to the Confederate Treasury. The Confederacy appropriated by confiscation from Federal Custom Houses and mints about $6,000,000 in gold and silver coins. There was also a gold loan negotiated in Paris and London early in the war which netted the South $3,000,000, some scattered funds gained from the sale of the "cotton bonds" in Europe and $15,000,000 specie loan floated in 1861 in the Confederacy. The Southern investor could only subscribe to this loan by paying for his bonds in gold and silver coins.
These bonds offered 8% interest payable in gold, bonds were due in ten years from May 1, 1861, and a small tax levied on export of cotton to pay interest on these bonds. The tax had to be paid in gold also. All of this financing netted the Confederate Treasury approximately $20,000,000 in gold and silver. Unfortunately, this hard money could not be kept as a reserve for later issues of paper money by the Confederate Treasury as it had to be used to pay for ships of war and munitions to be purchased in England and the continent of Europe as European shipyards and munitions makers insisted on payment for this type of hardware in hard cash. It was not that the British or French did not at first believe that the Confederacy had a good chance to win, but they traditionally believed in hard money and not credits.
The Confederate ships, Alabama, Shenandoah, and others were purchased with some of the Confederacy's gold coin.
it is interesting to note that at the time of President Jefferson Davis' capture in May 1865 his party was in possession of all the remaining Confederate funds which amounted to $85,000 in gold, $36,000 in silver, $35,000 in silver coin, and $700,000 in Confederate currency.
The total issues of Treasury notes by Confederate States of America may have totaled perhaps $1,000,000,000. It is difficult to determine the actual figure as, after 1863, there were $700,000,000 Treasury Notes outstanding, and after that the records are not trustworthy and a great deal of confusion ensued in the Confederate Treasury so that the actual total may never be known.
At the end of the war, U.S. paper dollars retained a value of approximately 50 cents in gold which after four years of terrific financial strain, would appear to have done well enough and would be well contrasted with our present 48 cent dollars in term of 1939, or 28 cents in terms of 1910.
However, after Appomattox, one dollar in gold would purchase $6,000 in Confederate currency and in the last quarter of 1865 a Confederate dollar was worth about one cent in gold.
In appraising the fortunes of the Confederacy in terms of finance the strongest figure that comes into focus seems to me to be Christopher Gustavus Memminger of South Carolina, who later became Secretary of Treasury of the Confederate States of America after a quickie appointment by Davis to that post formerly held by George Toombs of Georgia.
Memminger had received an education in law, spent most of his early years in Charleston, South Carolina, where he gained fame as a man who believed in sound finance and hard money, and who had banking experience. The irony of his position later in the Davis Cabinet was that here was a man who believed in a gold dollar, but would have to consent to the issuance of millions of dollars of paper money that steadily depreciated with the declining fortunes of the Confederacy.
Any report on Confederate finance would be meaningless without some reference to the South's principal economic defense, cotton. While it may be true that the North had the industrial and manufacturing abilities that were simply not available to the Southern cause, the South had a mighty weapon in its valuable cotton crop. The South's cotton was the main stay of Britain's and France's cotton spinning mills and when that commodity was cut off through the short-sighted supply policy of Davis and his cabinet, the Confederacy lost its best weapon for carrying the conflict to a successful conclusion.
Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State, considered by most sources the brains of the Confederacy, proposed in 1861 that the Confederate States of America buy up at least 100,000 bales of cotton and ship it at once to England. This would have given the CSA substantial credits with which to buy war hardware and ships and would have produced credits of perhaps $50,000,000.
However, our friend Memminger, the Treasury Secretary, ridiculed this plan as uneconomic and unconstitutional, and his term for the plan was "Souphouse Legislation". If Memminger had gone along with Benjamin's plan to export cotton to Europe and hold it there as a basis for the South's currency, the value of the Confederate dollar might have maintained a sound position and this could have insured victory for the South.
Jefferson Davis felt that Britain and France would recognize the Confederate States if the cotton were kept from the English and French mills; a sort of starvation measure. This idiotic policy was unfortunately maintained throughout the years 1861 to 1863 and after the Federal blockade tightened up in 1862 and 1863, it was then difficult indeed for the blockade runners to slip past the Federal line of ships.
Many of the fast running vessels of the blockade fleet did make the passage to Nassau, however, and fabulous profits were earned by these skippers.
Hamilton Cochrane says in his Blockade Runners of the Confederacy quotes:
In the latter two years of the war, the profits resulting from the export of cotton through the blockade were enough to make any "opportunist drool". Cotton which could be brought anywhere in the South for 6 cents per pound brought 56 to 66 cents per pound, laid down in England, realizing a gross profit of from 50 cents to 60 cents per pound. A steamer with an average capacity of 800 bales often earned $420,000 on a successful round trip. It was a common saying among the blockade-running fraternity that a shipowner could shrug off the loss of his vessel after two safe round trips through the blockade. In casting up his accounts after the loss of the Banshee, supercargo Tom Taylor wrote that 'Some idea of the vast profits accruing from blockade running at this time (1863-1864) can be gathered from the fact that notwithstanding the total loss of the Banshee to capture, she earned sufficient on the eight successful round trips which she made, to pay her shareholders 700% on their investment.' On a cargo of meat and provisions sold to the Commissary General in Richmond in the fall of 1864, Taylor chalked up a net profit 350 per cent. He received $27,000 for the foodstuffs, having paid only $6,000 in Nassau.
In 1861, if this foolish policy had not been followed, perhaps 100,000 bales of cotton could have been shipped, as at that time the Federal fleet was scattered in many parts of the world and Lincoln had only three capable vessels to maintain a blockade of 3,500 miles of coastline. So in a way the Davis government's embargo really aided Mr. Lincoln's plan of blockading Confederate ports and stifling the export of cotton to Europe.
By January 1862 because of this colossal blunder on the part of the Davis government the CSA was ruined financially, struggling under an impossible load of constantly depreciating paper currency, with its armies suffering from lack of arms and supplies, and the people of the South feeling the pinch of shortages of food, medicines and many necessities of life.
An interesting side light on Memminger was that along with other prominent Charleston, South Carolina families, he established a summer home at Flat Rock, North Carolina, in 1838. The DAR Magazine, January, 1960 mentions, quote:
In 1945 the Memminger home called "Rock Hill" was bought by Carl Sandburg, the poet and Lincoln biographer, who changed the name of the estate to 'Connemara' and has since made it his permanent residence.
The first issue of Confederate currency was printed in New York City before the outbreak of the war. There were many Confederate sympathizers in New York City at the beginning of the conflict and indeed all through the war many New Yorkers leaned toward the South. Most of the engravers and printers were in New York and so it was natural for these firms to make the currency at that time. Later the South secured engravers and printers and made its own bank notes.
Civil War History, Volume V, No. IV, Dec. 1959, says, quote: When the war started the South had two trump cards, aside from its early military successes. Because England was in vital need of Southern cotton, the South plausibly reckoned on receiving diplomatic recognition from England, and expected to obtain there all the supplies it would need to carry on the war. Some optimists even thought that England might enter the war as an ally of the South. Although there was considerable pro-Southern sentiment in England, it was outweighed by strong anti-slavery feelings. In the end England steered clear of recognition, partly due to the skillful diplomacy of Charles Francis Adams the Northern ambassador. The South's hopes of obtaining war supplies by exporting cotton were also dashed by the North's unexpectedly effective naval blockade. As thousands of unshipped bales of cotton piled up on the wharves, the South suffered suffered from shortages of food and supplies. When Admiral Parragut forced an entrance to the Mississippi at New Orleans in 1862, thousands of bales were burned by the Confederates. The property loss must have been fantastic; in some cases planters set fire to their own bales, and it is said that 'The cotton floated down the Mississippi like one sheet of living flame, even in the sunlight'.
The combination of short supplies and lack of funds in the South inevitably led to powerful inflationary pressures. The Confederate attempts to establish official prices were foredoomed to failure; the so-called "fixed" prices had to be revised upward from time to time. From May 1863 to Marh 1865 the fixed price of bacon, for example, went from $1 a pound to $4 a pound. At the same time the fixed price of a bushel of beans rose from $4 to $30.
In some cases the resulting misery led to food riots. A clerk in the war department at Richmond witnessed such a riot in 1863. Over a thousand people, mostly women., marched in an orderly procession toward the food stores, gathering carts and trays as they went along and then loading them with meal., flour and other provisions. Soon the mob took to pillage., breaking in shop windows for silks, jewelry and other valuables. Troops were summoned, and the mayor threatened to fire on the rioters if they did not disperse."
To quote Fred Reinfeld, author of "The Story of Civil War Money":
There were four issues of Confederate currency in 1861; the first of which was for 1,000,000 in denominations of $50 to $1.,000 and these notes stated that twelve months after date the Confederate States of America will pay to bearer ---------- dollars with interest at --------- cents per day. The engraving and printing of these notes were actually the work of the National Bank Note Co. of New York. The notes were smuggled through the Northern blockade to the Southern Treasury."
Also, from Fred Reinfeld's "The Story of Civil War Money" I quote:
The first four issues of Confederate currency relied to a considerable extent on vignettes borrowed from earlier state bank issues. The central vignette on the $500 note of the Montgomery 1861 issue is a good example of this. The picture of cattle approaching a brook as a train crosses a bridge is an exact copy of one-dollar note issued by the North Western Bank of Warren, Pa. The second issue, which originated in Richmond, appeared in denominations of $50 and $100. The numbers and dates of the notes are handwritten. The obligation is the same, except that Richmond is given as the place of redemption. The Richmond issue of 1861 was printed by "the Southern Bank Note Company"---really the New Orleans branch of the American Bank Note Company of New York.
The third issue, authorized by the Act of May 3.6., 1861, comprised $5, $10., $20., $50 and $100 denominations, The date is printed, while the numbers are handwritten.
The obligation states that 'Five years after date, the Confederate States of America will pay to bearer . . .Dollars, Richmond, Va. July 25th 1861." A further notation reads: "Fundable in Confederate States Stock bearing Eight per cent interest.''
The final issue of 1861, totaling $150,000,000, was authorized by the Act of August 19, 1861, and December 24, 1861. It was made up of $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes.
The last issue of Confederate currency was authorized by the Act of February 17, 1864, and appeared in denominations of 50 cents., $1, $2) $5: $10, $20, $50, $100, and $500.
While the authorized amount of the issue was $200,000,000, it is believed that the amount actually issued was perhaps as much as ten times greater; and it may well be that even more were printed but not issued. At any rate, the notes of this issue are the ones most commonly encounted today and consequently the lowest in value.
The obligation reads like that of the issue of September 2, 1861, except that it begins, "Two years after ratification," etc. There is no reference to convertibility to Confederate stock or bonds. The date of issue is printed, the numbers handwritten.
Two Confederate coins were struck --- a cent and a half dollar, Neither of these coins was ever issued in quantity because of the Confederacy's shortage of metal.
The Confederate government placed an order for Confederate cents with George H Lovett of New York City. After preparing dies and striking twelve coins in nickel-copper, Lovett dropped the project, fearing prosecution by the Union Government. (Why the same danger was not involved in the National Bank Note Company's printing of Confederate notes in New York has never been clear.) Lovett hid the dies and coins in his cellar.
Years later Captain John W. Haseltine purchased the dies, and made some restrikes of them. According to his statement,, he made seven restrikes in gold, twelve in silver and 55 in copper. The gold restrikes, of which three are known, are valued at $750. The silver restrikes (five known) are valued at $325. The original coins and the copper restrikes have a value of $200.
The half dollar was struck at the New Orleans mint after it fell into Confederate hands. The reverse design was removed and a new Confederate reverse was substituted for it. Only four specimens are known., and they are valued at $5.,000. Collectors did not know of their existence until 1879. Later one of these coins and the reverse die were sold to J. W. Scott and Co. of New York City.
The Scott firm obtained five hundred 1861 U. S. half dollars from the New Orleans mint and replaced the original reverse with the Confederate reverse, using the die which it had purchased previously. These restrikes are now valued at over $200.
In addition, Scott issued a token using the Confederate reverse and a specially designed obverse with an inscription indicating that the reverse of the token had been struck from the original Confederate die.
In addition to the currency of the Confederate Treasury there were many notes issued by the various Southern States, individual banks, towns counties and even those of private individuals.
During the occupation of the City of New Orleans by Union forces under General Benjamin F. Butler which began on May 3., 1862, the C. S. A. lost a great financial bulwark. New Orleans was the largest city in the South and was the center of the cotton & sugar export. Trade products of the Mississippi River Valley were shipped for sale to New Orleans and almost 2,000 sea-going vessels and 3,500 river steamers with tonnage of 1,200,000 tons entered the port of New Orleans during the year before the war.
After the occupation by Federal troops in 1862 this trade abruptly ceased and the once busy wharves and warehouses looked like a ghost town. Many of the cotton and sugar warehouses had been burned by the C. S. A, and business was at a standstill.
Butler ordered resumption of trade but the response was meager indeed. When General Banks took command of the city in 1863 following Butler, Banks tried to renew trade and many Northern traders and business men came down to make their fortunes but the blockades of the Federal fleet in the Mississippi prevented much of the cotton that was still left in planters' hands from entering the once great market of New Orleans.
In addition to the problems of trade and employment in an occupied city there was a severe shortage of currency.
In the fall of 1861, the banks of New Orleans, upon orders from Richmond, suspended payment in specie for payment in Confederate notes. As a result the value of C. S. A. money steadily depreciated.
Then in 1862 the banks of New Orleans began issuing their own notes. Streetcar lines and railroads had permitted their tickets to be used as small change.
May 19, 1862 General Butler issued General Order #30 ordering the banks to pay out only gold silver, bank notes, or U. S. Treasury Notes. All the persons or firms who had issued small notes or what were popularly known as shin plasters were ordered to redeem these in specie or U. S. Treasury Notes on presentation, under penalty of confiscation of property and imprisonment at hard labor.
Many counterfeiters operated in the traffic of the railroad ticket field and flooded the city with these scraps of paper. However, General Banks ordered the issuance of the tickets stopped and the postmaster at New Orleans had to order the use of postage stamps forbidden for currency use.
Civil War History, Volume V., No. IV, December, 1959, says, quote:
"His actions were applauded in two quarters -- the "True Delta", which charged that the banks had engaged in "patriotic swindling" since 1861 and that they were interested in nothing but shifting the burden of the financial troubles onto other shoulders; and a group of French citizens, who addressed Butler on May 12 and attributed all the city's troubles to the suspension of specie payment. Among these citizens, General Order No. 30, outlawing the circulation of Confederate money., was extremely popular, for it left the banks holding the worthless Confederate notes. Butler took a firm attitude toward the banks, seizing the funds deposited to the account of the Confederate government and ordering them to release Northern assets sequestered by the Confederacy. But he needed their help to manage some of his personal financial transactions, and be apparently came to some sort of terms with them. In any case, the banks, crippled as they were, were doing as much business as the times permitted during the fall of 1862."
There were rumors that the Gas Light Company or City Railroad supplied coke to blockade runners so that they would not smoke so much and attract the attention of the Federal fleet on patrol. However, this was found to be false.
Again from the Civil War History, Volume V., No. IV, quote:
"The fate of the business houses and banking firms of occupied New Orleans would strike a modern historian of military occupations as neither strange nor unjust. But to the Orleanian of the period--perhaps because he had so recently become an enemy of the United States government--it seemed both. The decline of trade in the first years of the Federal occupation really was not surprising in view of the fact that the Mississippi River was not opened to trade again until after the summer of 1863. The fact that this great avenue of trade remained closed for so long meant that the war had a serious effect on the economy of New Orleans--a city whose principal source of income had been trade, rather than any form of manufacturing. The war years were to have a lasting effect on the New Orleans business community, for, in many cases, the elimination of "disloyal" businessmen and the acquisition of their property by the New Northern arrivals was permanent and would change the face of New Orleans business for decades to come."
A most important life-line of Confederate supply were the war materials and food stuffs brought into blockaded Southern ports by the fast little ships that operated as blockade runners.
Guns and ammunition and all sorts of military hardware, food stuffs, luxuries and a great many things that were in short supply in the South were carried past the guns of the Federal fleets and landed at Norfolk; Beaufort; New Bern and Wilmington in North Carolina; Charleston; Savannah; Pensacola; Mobile; New Orleans and Galveston. These were the ten ports of the South which were principally used. Charleston., South Carolina., and Wilmington,, North Carolina finally developed as the two principal ports.
The C. S. A. was quick to fortify Wilmington by building Forts Fisher and Fort Caswell. Fort Fisher was located at the mouth of the Cape Fear River near the bar that was the ocean passage to sea., and Fort Caswell at the old inlet entrance to the river. Fort Fisher was heavily armed with long range Columbiads. When a blockade runner had evaded the pursuing Federal ships and successfully crossed the bar, Fort Fisher would open a barrage directed toward the Federal ships and the runners' captain, having steamed into the channel near Ft. Fisher would breathe a sigh of relief and proceed up the River to Wilmington 18 miles away.
When the South finally began to ship cotton by these runners every possible space on board including most of the deck space would be filled with bales of "white gold" as the cotton was called.
On the way at sea if a runner was chased by a Federal ship that proved to be the faster and mw overhauling the runner, bales of cotton would be heaved over-board in order to lighten the load and increase the runner's speed.
The cotton that got through to Bermuda and Nassau for shipment to English mills,, and much of it did., provided the credits for most of the purchases that were brought In and large shipments of gold and English pounds were carried to the C. S. A. by the runners .
However, cargoes landed in the Confederacy were usually, paid for with Confederate currency. The foreign blockade runner captains and owners (principally English-men) then changed this currency when they could into gold at a heavy discount, which contributed to the ever increasing depreciation in the value of Confederate money.
Among the most famous of the Confederate blockade captains was Capt. John Newland Maffet of the Confederate Navy. He had been an officer in the U, S. Navy but resigned at the outbreak of hostilities. He had been stationed before the war at Cape Fear for a number of years and was very familiar with the North Carolina coast and was able to guide the runners in and out of the channel under the nose of the Federal fleet lying off the Cape. He later commanded the C. S. A. Navy vessel Florida, which was very successful in capturing Federal ships on the high seas and it was said that the Florida took 72 prizes in all estimated at a value of $15,000,000.
To quote Hamilton Cochran again:
"By December 1861 Maffitt had become a naval aid to General Robert E. Lee and was busy with duties of a general character, surveying, erecting batteries and placing obstructions along the coast of South Carolina. A month later, on January 7, 1862, Lieutenant Maffitt received the orders that embarked him on his career as a blockade runner and gave him an opportunity to exercise all the experience ability and courage which had been growing within him during his long years of naval service. The ship assigned to Maffitt was the Cecile, offered to the government by Fraser, Trenholm & Company of Charleston and Liverpool. She was said to be unusually fast and could stow to advantage about 700 bales of cotton.
Maffitt knew only too well of the North's determination to dethrone "King Cotton," If Lincoln's government could cause this commodity to become less important as an aid to the Confederacy, then the Confederacy's credit abroad for the purchase of materials of war would suffer. But cotton prices were skyrocketing. Profits were fantastic for those who were willing to run major risks to bring that cotton safely eastward through the blockade. Already the shipyards of England and Scotland were busy building steamers especially designed for the blockade-running trade. In later years Maffitt recalled that 'in a brief time the harbors of Bermuda and Nassau swarmed with sky-colored vessels eagerly seeking pilots and adventurous seamen to assist in transporting desirable cargoes into Dixie.' Thus was blockade running established as an instrument of war.
Bermuda and Nassau were strategically located in relation to the South Atlantic Coast. Bermuda was only 674 miles from Wilmington, North Carolina, and was mainly used by vessels running to that port. Since Nassau was closer to-the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, it was the main headquarters for vessels running into Charleston (515 miles and Savannah (500 miles).
All vessels leaving Europe or Bermuda or Nassau for Southern blockaded ports gave neutral ports as their destination on their ships, papers. A blockade runner leaving Bermuda for Wilmington, for example., would give Nassau as her destination. All of John T. Bourne's manifests, covering scores of different blockade runners, invariably give Nassau as the port of destination. Of course none could be deceived by this pretense of an innocent voyage; and the U. S. courts, looking only at the final destination., condemned captured blockade runners when there was evidence of an ultimate intention to break the blockade. This decision rested solidify on an old principle of the English prize courts, known as the Doctrine of Continuous Voyage. According to this, the mere touching at an intermediate port of a vessel making an illegal voyage could not break the continuity of the voyage or remove the taint of illegality.
To get around this difficulty (they hoped) British and Confederate merchants and blockade runners thought up a new device. All cargoes would be transshipped at Bermuda or Nassau., either directly from ship to ship., or stored in warehouses and then transferred to the steamer that was to take them through the blockade. But here again the courts stepped in and held that though a transshipment was made, even after landing the cargo and going through a form of sale, the two voyages were parts of one and the same transaction and the cargo from the outset was liable to condemnation, of both -ship and cargo, if the original intention had been to forward the goods to a blockaded port. The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court summed up the situation when he said, "The ships are planks of the same bridge, all of the same kind, and necessary for the convenient passage of persons and property from one end to the other,"
'With these legal rights to support them, U. S. men-of-war roamed the waters between Bermuda, Nassau and the Southern mainland, continuously on the lookout for vessels heading east. It was a ninety-nine to one chance that they would be carrying contraband.
It will be recalled that at the outset of the war the Confederate government purposely refrained from buying and shipping cotton in the hope that its scarcity would induce the European powers officially to recognize the South and give it diplomatic status. But less than a year later President Davis and his advisers woke up to their mistake and scrambled frantically to buy up cotton stocks and ship them in order to finance the vast purchase of war materials being made abroad by Confederate agents. But the actual cotton buying was never properly organized until August 1864.
Meanwhile a commercial agent for the Confederate government had been appointed in Bermuda. He was a reputable merchant by the name of John Tory Bourne. Mr. Bourne kept a complete and accurate record of the cargo manifests of the Confederate blockade runners with whom he did business. Fortunately for posterity, copies of these manifests remained virtually complete and in relatively good condition for nearly a century in a grocery store conducted by a descendant., C. S. Bourne. Shortly after the death of C. S. Bourne the letter books of John T. Bourne came to light, thanks to the co-operation of customs officials at Saint Georgels, Bermuda, and leading citizens of the island.
Not only was Bermuda ideally situated for blockade running but its people were strongly in sympathy with the Southern cause. So much so, in fact, that on at least one occasion the U. S. consul was attacked in his office. On another day he was knocked down in the street by Bermudians who had become enraged at his activities favoring the Federal government. The sentiment in behalf of the Confederacy was further heightened by the rigid restrictions placed by the United States government on traffic between Northern ports and Bermuda and Nassau.
The new trade of blockade running brought with it a big increase in revenue to everyone in Bermuda. Life was gay and easy. The home of Mrs. Norman Walker (wife of the chief Confederate agent) vas always open to Southern supporters. Rose Hill 'residence of Mr. Bourne, overlooking beautiful Saint George's Harbor, was constantly filled with Confederate agents and Naval Officers. Young girls of the islands entertained visiting young Confederate Officers with all sorts of balls, dances and festivities. Saint George's had "become not only a harbor of refuge, but a pleasant resting place after the excitement and fatigue of an outward voyage," wrote one of the blockade runners.
Warehouses were crammed with crates marked "merchandise" or "nails" or "combustibles." Bourne's was filled to the ceiling with greatcloth, shoes, blankets, and Confederate government commissary stores awaiting shipment. Saint George's was a boom town in every respect, not only for officers and civilians but for common sailors as well. They filled the streets and overflowed the drinking places.
Gamblers and speculators came to Bermuda and Nassau in droves, hoping to make quick and handsome profits -- and many of them did. Popular speculations were in cut nails, salt, leather and medicines. During the first six months of the war the entire cut nail supply of the South was in the hands of four or five speculators in Richmond. Prices skyrocketed from $4 to $7 per keg and then to $10. As there was only one source of salt in the entire Confederacy, the price soared in two years from 1 cent per pound to 50 cents. In the early months, a great deal of salt was smuggled into the South from across the border in exchange for cotton.
Another favorite commodity of speculators was "Bermuda Bacon." The plan was simplicity itself. The bacon buyer would visit hog raiders in New York and other near-by states and offer the hog raisers far more a pound for their hams and bacon than the United States government or civilian merchants were offering. So it was very easy to buy up large supplies of pork products. These were salted and shipped out of New York or Philadelphia to Bermuda or Nassau. This was especially true during the first years of the war. No one seemed to wonder why the people of these islands were suddenly taking to eating vast quantities of pork products. Upon arrival in the islands, the hams and bacon were sold at quadruple their cost to agents of the Confederate States Quartermaster Corps, then shipped to hungry soldiers on the firing line.
War supplies of all kinds continued to flow through Bermuda in a seemingly endless stream. In February 1863, the chief of ordnance in Richmond received shipments from the island consisting of 70,980 long Enfield rifles, 9,715 short Enfields, 354 carbine Enfields, 20 small-bore Enfields, 27,000 Austrian rifles, 21,040 British muskets and 2,020 Brunswick rifles. There were also cases, molds, kegs and screwdrivers. Shipments of artillery: 129 guns of various types. An almost interminable list could be enumerated including percussion caps, tools, serge, cartridge bags, lead, copper, shellac, tin plate and steel.
The South was hard put to keep its soldiers supplied with lead bullets and the superintendent of Confederate ordnance laboratories wrote in March 1863 that lead was so scarce that if any unexpected emergency arose they would be unable to supply the demand. "The question of lead supply is nearly if not all together as vital as that of niter and such a demand upon the owners of vessels running the blockade would seem no illegitimate exercise of authority in such a crisis as this." What he referred to was his suggestion that blockade runners should be ordered to bring in a fixed amount of lead as part of each incoming cargo. All too often blockade-running captains who ran into danger of pursuit or capture threw the lead overboard to lighten their ships.
Between September 1862 and September 1863, a great deal had been accomplished by the Confederate government to improve their purchasing facilities abroad and keep open their lines of supply. During this period 113,504 small arms were brought through the blockade, in addition to great quantities of saltpeter, cartridges, flannel, paper for cartridges, leather and hardware. In contrast, only 35,000 arms were manufactured in the various armories of the Confederacy during the same period, Thus blockade running had provided more than three times the number of arms produced by the South itself. The following year, however, when Southern production increased and munitions and arms were flowing from Southern manufacturing plants, blockade running was of immense benefit in augmenting the scanty home supplies of food and clothing. The quartermaster general admitted in a letter to General Lee that his chief reliance on blockade running was to supply shoes, blankets and leather that winter.
One of the main reasons for the inadequate supply of food in the South throughout the war, both for civilians and for the Confederate army, was poor distribution., poor condition of the railroads and downright bad management. The shortage of meat was particularly acute following the fall of Vicksburg and the consequent disruption of communication with the trans-Mississippi department. To fulfill this need, every effort was made to import meat. This was successfully accomplished as shown by the fact that 8,632,000 pounds of meat were imported into the Confederacy between November 1, 1863, and December 8, 1864, all of this on government account along with more than half a million pounds of coffee.
After the fall of Atlanta on July 22, 1864 and Sherman's "March to the Sea" the financial and supply problems of the C. S. A. became extremely severe and while the will to fight persisted these factors were very difficult to overcome.
One other important source of supply was the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, Virginia. This was practically the only establishment of its kind that served the Confederate states with ordnance materials used by the Army and Navy.
Also, when Grant tightened the ring around Richmond in the early months of 1865 and Petersburg fell, the last remaining supply and financial organization of the Richmond government just about collapsed.
One of the most important sources of ordnance supply for the armies of the C. S. A. were the lead mines of Southwestern Virginia. These mines, which were discovered in 1756 by Col. John Chiswell, were about 9 miles South of Fort Chiswell at Austinville, in the County of Wythe, Virginia, and commonly called the Wytheville mines. They had been operated at various times and in 1860 were taken over by Union Lead Mining Co.
Shortly after the war began the C, S. A. Government demanded that the management either work the mines to their full capacity or turn them over to the C. S. A. government for operation. The directors of the Union Lead Mining Co. chose to operate them for the Richmond Government.
Importation of lead from overseas could not be counted on to provide a steady supply of lead although the Secretary of War did report on December 10, 1864 that 12,546 pips of lead estimated at 1,507,000 pounds had been supplied through the ports of Charleston and Wilmington.
Apparently the Wytheville mines supplied one fourth to one third of the lead used by the C. S. A.
These mines were operated for the C. S. A. continuously until General Stoneman and his force of Federal raiders succeeded in damaging them in a raid on December 17, 1864. Limited production was afterwards resumed but Stoneman again raided the mines on April 7, 1865 which was the end of production.
Federal military objectives in Southwest Virginia, in order of importance, were (1) the Wytheville lead mines, (2) the Virginia-Tennessee Railroad (especially the New River Bridge at Radford), and (3) the salt works of Smyth County. Yet the Federal Army seemed to operate on the assumption that the order of importance was (1) the salt works of Smyth County, (2) the Virginia-Tennessee Railroad., and (3) the Wytheville lead mines.
The Wytheville mines were a vital industrial operation, unappreciated then except by a select few, and almost forgotten today. Still in operation today as a branch of the New Jersey Zinc Company, the mines play an important role in industry with their historic past almost forgotten; the mines themselves are away from the beaten track of the history-minded sight-seer. State roadside historical markers for both the lead mines and Jackson's shot tower omit any mention of their service in the Civil War. Strangely enough, the strongest remaining links with the Civil War period are the workmen themselves, many the grandsons of those who provided the lead for the Confederate armies of 1861-1865.
In looking back 100 years ago, it seems that the South's heroic struggles; with unequal forces; ordnance, food supplies, and lack of all the materials needed to carry on a war, even of that period, were valiant, and courageous in the extreme.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bibliography Hamilton Cochran Blockade Runners of the Confederacy
Civil War History Volume V. No. IV, December, 1959
