fcts2

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole...we have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually." - Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860

***

"They (the South) know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest.... These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They (the North) are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it." ~ New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861

***

"What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860?" "Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich."..."... the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North." - Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327

***

Cotton was king and Louisiana was queen! New Orleans was the major l9th-century port for cotton export, and Louisiana's fertile valleys were the South's major cotton producers. The Confederate government realized cotton was as good as if not better than gold. Cotton's value gave Louisiana a major financial role during the war. Not only did the Confederacy use the foreign exchange paid to the South for the exported 1860 cotton crop, the Confederate government purchased cotton to use both as security for European loans and for export.

This plan worked until 1862 when the Union army occupied New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Federal forces raided from Morgan City up to Alexandria. Vicksburg and Port Hudson fell, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River.

As Confederate troops retreated, they destroyed as much of the cotton crop as possible, to prevent this "gold" from falling into enemy hands.

Source: The War in Louisiana Office of Tourism Page.

***

Antebellum history often seems dominated by scenes of plantations worked by slaves. Although thousands of large plantations employed slave labor and produced most of the South's cotton, numerically there were more small farmers, mostly whites, who cultivated the upland areas with their own hands. Many of these yeomen were subsistence farmers and produced only a surplus of cotton for market. Southern farmers who did not grow cotton sold some of their foodstuff to the planters. Cotton could bring prosperity or depression, according to changes in the market, and these fluctuations meant very differing experiences for whites, slaves, and antebellum free blacks of each different region of the South.

Food for Cotton

As the price of foodstuffs reached astronomical heights and Confederate currency became worthless with inflation, the smuggling of cotton out of the South to the North increased. Women whose husbands had been killed or were away at the battlefield or in prison were heavily involved in forming these caravans. Rich planters and factors also made large deals with Federal officials. The situation became totally absurd when cotton was sold to Federal troops to get supplies for the Confederate army. Even President Lincoln approved an arrangement to send food for Robert E. Lee's Troop at Petersburg in exchange for cotton for New York. Ulysses S. Grant stopped this exchange because he was attempting to cut off Lee's supplies, but other such exchanges occurred through the Civil War.

Source: "The Confederacy" A Macmillan Information Now Encyclopedia, article by Orville Vernon Burton and Patricia Dora Bonnin

***

MORE

The first three years of war, exchange of prisoners was common practice. Early 1864, Lincoln stopped this practice"Grant's advice" This new policy was crafted to keep C.S. exchanges from returning to their units. The South had no replacements to call on. The North, on the other hand had a million troops around Washington that had never seen the elephant!...Lincoln had not a care for his soldiers in Southern prisons, he was pleased it a burden for The Confederates!

The worst prison camp during the War For Southern Independence was NOT Andersonville but Rock Island, Illinois. This Union camp had an estimated 72% death rate as compared to Andersonville's 27% !! The South also suffered more deaths in union prisons than union in Southern prisons. The Confederate prisoner's were starved and deprived of the essentials to survive the harsh winters of the north. This done by a nation that had ample means to provide for the prisoners. The South could not even provide for it's own troops!

In the beginning of these horrors the Confederate government renewed the efforts for exchange of prisoners. These efforts fell on deaf ears, Lincoln would sacrifice his own to handicap the South!....PoP

***

PROPAGANDA

It has been said that history is created by those who write it rather than those who live it. This is hyperbole, of course, but each historian does indeed write from a particular perspective. So Americans, depending on what schools they attend and which historians they rely on, may have differing views of the same event.

Also, many Americans rely on public libraries for their knowledge of history. But, contrary to what many think, the purpose of public libraries is not to present balanced views but to make available to their patrons the most sought after books. Public libraries, unlike libraries affiliated with universities, stock their shelves with best sellers or books receiving favorable reviews in mass market journals.

Quite a few people derive their knowledge of history from fictional accounts; novels, plays, films, and TV. This is especially true of depictions of the War Between the States. This unparalleled event in our history has continued to inspire fictional works for 140 years....more on this HERE.

***

Northern historians have traditionally laid the blame for the War of 1861 at the feet of the Confederates at Charleston, South Carolina for their allegedly unprovoked attack upon the helpless United States garrison besieged in Fort Sumter. The Official Records , published by the U.S. War Department in the 1880s, tell a completely different story one in which the South was deliberately and treacherously maneuvered by the Lincoln Administration into firing the first shot.

***

"Under Federal Legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal Revenue. Virginia, the two Carolina's, and Georgia, may be said to defray three fourths of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures. that expenditure flows in an opposite direction -- it flows north, in one uniform, uninterrupted and perennial stream. This is the reason why wealth disappears from the south and rises up in the north. Federal Legislation does this." - Senator Thomas Hart Benton

***

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people... Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom...nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberty by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice." -- John Adams