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Through the Blockade: The Profitability and Extent of Cotton Smuggling, 1861–1865

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Stanley Lebergott
Stanley Lebergott
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06457.
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Abstract

Although cotton smuggling through the North's blockade of the South during the American Civil War has often been viewed as a highly profitable activity, only a small percentage of blockade-running ships made more than one run. New figures for capture rates reconcile these observations by showing that the risks of blockade running were substantial. Estimates are also provided for the amount of cotton smuggled through the blockade and of its disposition between the North and Europe.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , December 1981 , pp. 867 - 888
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1981

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References

1 Anderson, Bern, By Sea and by River (New York, 1962), p. 222.Google ScholarRhodes, James F., History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 (New York, 1904), vol. V, pp. 401, 410.Google ScholarO'Flaherty, D., “The Blockade that Failed,” American Heritage (08 1955), 81;Google ScholarOwsley, Frank, King Cotton Diplomacy (Chicago, 1931), p. 574;Google ScholarRandall, J. G. and Donald, David, The Civil War and Reconstruction (Boston, 1961), p. 502.Google ScholarHobart-Hampden, Augustus, Sketches From My Life (London, 1886);Google ScholarTaylor, Thomas, Running the Blockade (New York, 1897);Google ScholarWilkinson, John, The Narrative of a Blockade Runner (New York, 1877).Google Scholar

2 Price, Marcus, “Ships that Tested the Blockade of the Carolina Ports, 1861–1865,” The American Neptune, 8 (1948), 196–241;Google Scholar“Ships that Tested the Blockade of the Gulf Ports, 1861–1865,” The American Neptune, 11 (1951), 262–90, and 12 (1952), 52–59, 154–61, 229–36; “Ships that Tested the Blockade of the Georgia and East Florida Ports, 1861–1865,” The American Neptune, 15 (1955), 97–132. The “less than one percent” phrase allows for registry of some ships under more than one name.Google Scholar Price's remarkable listing provides its own validation by the specificity, interrelatedness, and extent of the data he reports. It is worth noting, however, that his figure of 376 runs into Carolina ports in 1862 can be checked approximately. For the 110 runs in that group that are distinguished between Carolina ports we can compute that 45 percent were to or from South Carolina. If that proportion is applied to the full number, 169 trips in all were to or from South Carolina, and half, or 85, were outward trips. This figure compares well with the 89 clearances officially reported from Charleston in 1862. (Official Records, War of the Rebellion, Series IV, Vol. 2, Washington, D.C., 1900, p. 562.)Google Scholar

3 Quoted in Richardson, James D., Messages and Papers of the Confederacy (Nashville, 1906), vol. 2, pp. 541–42.Google Scholar

4 Official Records, Navies, Series 2, Vol. 3, (Washington, D.C., 1898), pp. 992, 1,001: 4 to 50$.Google Scholar

5 Freemantle, Arthur, Three Months in the Southern States: April-June 1863 (London, 1864), p. 10.Google ScholarWatson, William, The Adventures of a Blockade Runner; or, Trade in Time of War (London, 1892), p. 285.Google Scholar

6 The-U.K. price is from Ellison, Thomas, The Cotton Trade of Great Britain (London, 1886), p. 91.Google Scholar

7 39th Cong., 1st Sess., Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, H.R. 30, Vol. 2, (Washington, D.C., 1866), Part IV, p. 108.Google Scholar

8 Watson, Adventures, p. 94.Google Scholar

9 The Houston price would presumably have been slightly less, as absent the blockade there would have been an increased supply flowing into the southern ports from the plantations. And the Havana-Liverpool transport cost would not have differed markedly from a Galveston-Liverpool cost without a blockade.Google Scholar

10 Freemantle, Three Months, p. 30, describes “two oxen or six mules” hauling cotton 500 miles from the interior to Brownsville, while Watson, Adventures, p. 21, indicates it took from 6 to 8 weeks from Houston and then a further 270 miles from Brownsville to Tampico.Google Scholar

11 We multiply the imports of each, from Table 3 (infra), by 55–33c per pound, times 500 pounds a bale.Google Scholar

12 Maffitt, Emma, The Life and Services of John Newland Maffitt (New York, 1906), p. 229. J. N. Maffitt speaks of a period when cotton sold for 60 in the C.S.A., 58 to 60c in the U.K., declaring that a steamer “with average capacity of 800 bales often netted on the round trip about $420,000.” With 500 lb. bales the gross outward from the C.S.A. would only have been $125,000. Since inward trips normally earned less, the gross for the round trip could hardly have-been over $200,000—whereas Maffitt reports a net of $420,000, in every sense what he terms “fabulous profits.” It is possible that the net figure refers to payment in C.S.A. currency. He appears, however, to refer to the early days of blockade running.Google Scholar

13 Watson, William, Adventures;Google ScholarTaylor, Thomas, Running the Blockade (New York, 1897).Google Scholar

14 The general literature on the blockade cites the success of the Banshee more than that of almost any other vessel.Google Scholar

15 Taylor, , Running the Blockade (New York, 1897), p. 85. we assume this applied to the $168,000 first cost of the vessel.Google Scholar

16 Vandiver, Frank, Confederate Blockade Running Through Bermuda, 1861–1865 (Austin, 1947), pp. 57, 59.Google Scholar

17 National Archives, Record Group 365, Register of Export Duty.Google Scholar

18 National Archives, R.G. 365, Weekly Reports of Export Duty on Cotton.Google Scholar

19 The quotation is from Bourne, at the time, and appears in Vandiver, Confederate Blockade Running, p. 39. In August 1863 the vessel left Wilmington empty because “it was so difficult to provide the government steamers with cotton.”Google Scholar See Huse, quoted in Eaton, Clement, A History of the Southern Confederacy (New York, 1954) p. 146.Google Scholar

20 Anderson, By Sea and By River, pp. 222–23. He refers to an expense figure of $80,000 a month, or $40,000 a trip—about 40 percent above our estimate. His “stood to gain about $170,000” is fàlowed by “With such large and fat profits as a motive”—suggesting that he refers to net profits. If it were gross freight earnings, however, the trip net would be about $40,000–or about 25 percent on investment.Google Scholar

21 Soley, James R., The Blockade and the Cruisers (New York, 1883), p. 106, reports £30,000 as a not uncommon return each way.Google Scholar

22 See references to Price's work in footnote 2.Google Scholar

23 Owsley's, Cf. Frank review in King Cotton Diplomacy (Chicago, 1931), Ch. 8, andGoogle ScholarCochran, Hamilton, Blockade Runners of the Confederacy (Indianapolis, 1958), p. 34: “After Southern newspaper editors pointed out that it was virtually impossible to enforce such a blockade and that the whole thing was an empty threat, the anger of most Southerners turned to disdain and raucous mirth.”Google Scholar

24 Computed from Price's tabulations; see references in footnote 2. A shift likewise occurred from Gulf ports, which had to rely on sailing vessels, to the Carolina ports, where the steamers took command.Google Scholar

25 U.S. Navy Department, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series II, Vol. 3, (Washington, D.C., 1898), p. 357.Google Scholar British Consul Bunch in the summer of 1862 reported rates of 7, 10 and 15 percent on any European vessel plus her cargo bound for the South. Roman, Cf. Alfred, Military Operations of General Beauregard (New York, 1884), Vol. II, p. 424.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 371. In April Benjamin wrote Mason indicating a 10 percent rate for all vessels running the blockade. Ibid., p. 382.

27 In mid-1863 the U.S. consul at Nassau estimated a rate of 23 percent for steamers. Official Records, Navies, IX, p. 80. Our estimate from Price's data would indicate a 10 percent annual rate for the Carolina ports, 26 percent for gulf, 31 per cent for Georgia and 24 percent for all steamers.Google Scholar

28 Quoted in Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy, p. 273.Google Scholar

29 The probability of capture, with $0 earnings and loss of investment, was 47.4 percent, and that of success, with 100 percent, was its complement, or 52.6 percent. The cargo was a separate venture as the freight charges indicate.Google Scholar

30 We use the average profit rate estimate by Taylor, Running the Blockade. Had we used the Table 3 data for his first voyage the probable rate of return would be 84 percent.Google Scholar

31 Price, , “Blockade Running as a Business in South Carolina,” American Neptune, 9 (1949), 48.Google Scholar

32 National Archives, R.G. 56, Treasury, Cotton and Captured Property Records, Box 85, includes a deposition by Henry Cobia, President of the Company, which indicates its capital stock was $2 million, and by the end of the war it “controlled £30,000.” Cobia received $1,400 in gold for his 14 shares. Price (“Blockade Running as a Business,” p. 48) reports that its stock, issued in December 1863, then sold for $2,050 and $2,160 at auction. We infer an issue price of $2,000 C.S.A. a share, or, in gold terms, $100. Three dividends are reported by Price: February 1864, at a figure which we assume to have been the same as that of September 1864–$500; and January 1865, of $1,500. Deflating these by the gold value of the C.S.A. dollar, and taking the final liquidating dividend of $100 as paying back the initial capital investment, gives an average of $38 a year in dividends.Google Scholar

33 A letter in National Archives, R.G. 56, from Denver and Titus reported that the Chicora then had one steamer and was about to pay a dividend of $100 a share. The other data used are from Price, “Blockade Running as a Business,” pp. 45–46. We assume that the original capital or $21/2 million, issued at the same time as the Charleston Importing and Exporting Company, was likewise in $2,000 shares, then worth $100 in gold.Google Scholar

34 Price, “Blockade Running as a Business,” p. 38.Google Scholar

35 Dividend data from Price, idem. These are deflated back to the spring of 1862 when the capital was paid in. For deflation we use data on the gold value of Confederate Treasury notes, as recorded in Todd, Richard, Confederate Finance (Athens, Georgia, 1945), p. 198.Google Scholar

36 Deposition, quoted by Price, “Blockade Running as a Business,” p. 43.Google Scholar

37 Idem.Google Scholar

38 That figure is well below the average for the Banshee. The stories of glorious profit days in old Nassau describe the pilots and captains on a spree—not the proceedings of the ship owners.Google Scholar

39 The proportion did not differ greatly between steamers and sailing vessels or between years. It was, however, significantly lower for the Carolina ports, partioularly for steamers. This is one reason why the center of the export trade shifted to Wilmington and Charleston, instead of developing further in Texas.Google Scholar

40 Price's percentage is confirmed by computing the ratio implicit in data in 39th Cong., 1st Sess., H.D. l, Message of the President, Report of the Secretary of the Navy (Dec. 1865), pp. 495 ff.Google Scholar

41 Watson, William, p. 111. Other memoirs, less explicit on this point, lead to the same conclusion.Google Scholar

42 From Report of the Secretary of the Navy (December 1865), pp. 457–94.Google Scholar

43 Schwab, John C., The Confederate States of America, 1861–1865 (New York, 1904), p. 238.Google Scholar

44 Owl: Maffitt, Emma, The Life and Services of John Newland Maffitt, p. 229; Coquette:Google ScholarPrice, “Carolina Ports”; Memphis: Bradlee, Francis, Blockade Running During the Civil War (Salem, Massachusetts, 1925), p. 89.Google Scholar

45 The Evelyn with 1,000 bales; the Marian with 1,400 (Price, “Blockade of Gulf Ports”); the Cecile with 700 (Maffitt, John Newland Mafitt, Ch. 25).Google Scholar

46 National Archives, R.G. 365, Treasury Department Collection of Confederate Records, Register of Export Duty on Cotton (Charleston). The data related to 129 voyages from November 1861 to February 1865.Google Scholar

47 Bales: National Archives, R.G. 365, Register of Export Duty (Charleston). Tons, : U.S. Navy Department, OfficialRecords of the Union Navy, Series 2, Vol. 3. (Washington, D.C., 1898) p. 874.Google Scholar The vessels in this sample averaged 1.08 bales per ton. This figure may be compared with a contemporary report indicating that steamers “could” carry 1.54 bales per ton. Cf. the assertion in Official Records, Series IV, Vol. III, p. 587, that 15 steamers, of 39,000 tons, could carry 60,000 bales.Google Scholar

48 National Archives, R.G. 365, Register of Export Duty (Charleston).Google Scholar

49 In equilibrium investments should earn the same rate of return in all uses that were of equal risk. The number of bales is a rough proxy for freight earnings (gross) while tonnage is a proxy for gross investment. However, as noted above, the risk was higher, and the costs lower, in sailing vessels than steamers.Google Scholar

50 38th Cong., 1st Sess., H.D. 74, Prize Cases in New York (April 1864), pp. 454–512. Data are presented for 137 prizes. The median cargo for steamers in 1862 was $49,892, and for schooners, $7,918. We assume both averages reflect losses in jettisoning and damage in capture, but that the ratio serves our purpose fairly. To achieve the largest sample of both steamers and sailing vessels for a given period, and hence the most reliable ratio, we ignore scattered data for 1863.Google Scholar

51 U.S. National Archives, Weekly Reports of Export Duty on Cotton. The data relate to 52 vessels sailing September 1863–March 1864.Google Scholar

52 Ibid.

53 This figure is consistent with an implicit 400-bale official estimate as of August 1864: “at the present rate of export capacity” the C.S.A. would need 15 steamers to carry 6,000 bales a month. (Official Records, Series IV, Vol. III, p. 587.) The Charleston Register we use indicates 07–08 1864 departures of the Fox (648, 285 and 256 bales), the Druid (380, 386) and Syren (478).Google Scholar

54 The final data on Navy captures are from (U.S. Laws, Statutes) Compilation of Laws and Decisions of the Courts Relating to War Claims (Washington, D.C., 1912), now in the Law Library of the Library of Congress.Google Scholar The data from 39th Congress, 1st sess. H.D. I, Report, Secretary of the Navy, 1865 (Washington, D.C. 1866), are similar.Google Scholar

55 Hammond, Matthew B., The Cotton Industry (New York, 1897), p. 267.Google ScholarRhodes, , History of the United States, Vol. 5, pp. 409–10.Google ScholarOwsley, King Cotton Diplomacy, pp. 286–89. Eaton, History of the Southern Confederacy, p. 145.Google Scholar

56 Hammond and Rhodes rely on the comprehensive regular statements of U.K. imports published in the Merchants Review. Similarly, we rely on the reports of the Liverpool Cotton Association as summarized by Ellison, their statistician. The dominant role of this group in the cotton trade, their need for reliable data, and the continuity of their reporting over several decades, alike urged a preference for their totals on such imports. By contrast Owsley collects individual reports (from the weekly Economist and other sources). Reliance on these latter opens up the possibility of duplication and/or omission; they were not subject to any revision for any consistency by any contemporary concerned with aggregating them to annual totals as are the Association data.Google Scholar

57 Atkinson's statement appeared in 40th Cong., 2nd Sess., H.D. 81, Report of the Special Commissioner of Internal Revenue (January 1868), pp. 16–17, Helms's, Cf. 1863 remarks: “Mr. Addison Camack of New Orleans sold the Alice's 650 bales in Havana ‘without condition,’ and it will be sent to New York… cotton brings from 2 to 4 cents a pound more for the New York than the European markets and hence the inducement,” Official Records, Navies, Series II, p. 707.Google Scholar

58 Coulter, E. Merton, The Confederate States of America 1861–1865 (Baton Rouge, 1950), p. 242.Google ScholarOwsley finds that “hundreds of thousands of bales were put to the torch during the spring and summer of 1862” (King Cotton Diplomacy, pp. 48–49). In August 1862 Consul Bunch stated that “About 1,000,000 bales had before that time (July–Aug. 1862) been destroyed by the Southerners themselves to prevent its falling into the hands of ‘the enemy.’Google Scholar Cf. also Bernard, Mountague, A Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain During the American Civil War (London, 1870), p. 287.Google Scholar

59 Gates, Paul, Agriculture and the Civil War (New York, 1965), pp. 21, 85 describes a planter “hiding his remaining cotton in a swamp.”Google Scholar

60 Beauregard destroyed some 300,000 bales in Memphis in June 1863.Google ScholarHallum, Cf. John, The Diary of an Old Lawyer, or Scenes Behind the Curtain (Nashville, 1895), p. 186.Google ScholarThe C.S.A. report stated that 100,000 had been burned in Arkansas, January 26, 1863.Google ScholarJones, Cf. John Beauchamp, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary (1866), vol. I, p. 247.Google Scholar National Archives, R.G. 365, P.I. 283: “Miscellaneous Lists Relating to Cotton and Bonds”, includes a record book of cotton purchases with some manuscript pages labeled “Lowndes County, Mississippi–Abstract of Cotton Purchases and how disposed of by J. D. DeBow, General Agent, C.S.A.”, which notes claims for 9,000 bales burned by Beauregard at Issaquena, Mississippi in May 1862, and for 34,000 he burned between July and September, in Madison Parish, Louisiana. In the Red River campaign in 1864 some 46,000 bales of government cotton were destroyed. Official Records, Series I, Vol. LIII, p. 979.Google Scholar

61 Richmond Daily Enquirer (August 22, 1964).Google Scholar

62 Holabird, Colonel S. B. in 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., H.D. 97, Captured and Forfeited Cotton (Washington, D.C., 1867), p. 29.Google Scholar

63 Rhodes, believed “it would surprise no student of the subject to find that the North received more cotton …than did Great Britain from the blockade runners”. Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. V, p. 300.Google Scholar Our estimate of 608,000 smuggled by land is to be compared with that of 400,000 in O'Connor, T. H., “Lincoln and the Cotton Trade,” Civil War History, 7 (03 1961), p. 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar O'Connor's figure is adopted in Gates, Agricuhure and the Civil War, p. 106. O'Connor gives no source or procedure for his estimate.Google Scholar

64 In May 1865 the Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina sold 900 bales to a buyer presumably able to move cotton out of reach of U.S. Treasury agents. National Archives, R.G. 56, Box 85, Cotton and Captured Property Records, Examination and Deposition of Benjamin Mordecai and William C. Bee (No. 6030). The bales were held in Augusta.Google Scholar