Battle of Appomattox: Understanding General Lee's Surrender

Ammo.com ^ | 7/26/2021 | Sam Jacobs

[ammodotcom]

The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse is considered by many historians the end of the Civil War and the start of post-Civil War America. The events of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General and future President Ulysses S. Grant at a small town courthouse in Central Virginia put into effect much of what was to follow.

The surrender at Appomattox Courthouse was about reconciliation, healing, and restoring the Union. While the Radical Republicans had their mercifully brief time in the sun rubbing defeated Dixie’s nose in it, they represented the bleeding edge of Northern radicalism that wanted to punish the South, not reintegrate it into the Union as an equal partner.

The sentiment of actual Civil War veterans is far removed from the attitude of the far left in America today. Modern day “woke-Americans” clamor for the removal of Confederate statues in the South, the lion’s share of which were erected while Civil War veterans were still alive. There was little objection to these statues at the time because it was considered an important part of the national reconciliation to allow the defeated South to honor its wartime dead and because there is a longstanding tradition of memorializing defeated foes in honor cultures.

[SoCal Pubbie]

The entire cotton trade ran on credit. The cotton factor house advanced money to the planter on the basis of an expected crop. That crop was the collateral. The factor sold the cotton to a broker in New York or a foreign buyer (the actual logistics of this gets complicated, as explained in Five Cotton States). At some point a foreign import/export house might ship a given value of manufactured goods on the promise of an equivalent value of cotton. No money changed hands.

Cotton was particularly suited for credit because unlike corn, sugar, or molasses the goods didn't go bad.

[DoodleDawg]

At some point a foreign import/export house might ship a given value of manufactured goods on the promise of an equivalent value of cotton. No money changed hands. Cotton was particularly suited for credit because unlike corn, sugar, or molasses the goods didn't go bad.

What was wrong with money? The cotton exporter sells to sources in Britain. The British exporters sells to sources in New York. No need to barter.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Also from the same source:

“If New York capital should suddenly be diverted from this channel of employment, it would have disastrous effects upon the interests of the Cotton States. Even if such a change were effected, it could not benefit the planter, who would have to pay others for the same service, and at a higher rate. Some banks and individuals in the Southern cities might profit ; but as they could not for a long time extend the same facilities in the way of advances, the planters would sufier to an extent which could not be compensated by the increased profits of the bankers. This business of the exchange consequent upon the export of cotton, has assumed its present shape under the hands of those most interested in it ; and it cannot be changed suddenly without great loss, sufiering, and inconvenience to those who are concerned.”

Not looking good for The One Man Lost Cause Traveling Band.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I guess there was nothing wrong with money, but I would assume that the hassle of securely transporting large sums as opposed to simple notations on a ledger favored the latter system. The same reason actual money doesn’t get transferred every time you swipe a debit card.

[SoCal Pubbie]

“Cotton was the only cash crop. It was moreover the only crop which could be used as a basis of credit.”

From the Cotton Factorage System of the Southern States, Alfred Holt Stone, Oxford University Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1835857.pdf

[SoCal Pubbie]

Another except from the same source really cuts through the obfuscation:

“ WHO PAYS THE DUTIES

The grievance, however, which is most insisted upon by writers and speakers of the Cotton States is, that the heavy duties imposed by the United States bear with undue severity upon them ; many do not hesitate to assert that they pay all, or nearly all, the revenue of our government derived from duties on foreign goods. That this is believed, is evinced by the reiteration of the statement. It is sometimes supported by the argument, that as the return for Southern cotton is wholly in foreign commodities, the duty imposed upon them is virtually a tax upon the Southern cotton. This position is specious enough to mislead those who do not trouble themselves to think or inquire. Those who do, easily detect the fallacy. The consumer of imported goods must pay not only the foreign cost, but the duties and all intervening profits and charges ; the producers of cotton pay duties, under our system, only upon such goods as they consume…

…By analyzing the entire expenditure of the five Cotton States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, we may ascertain, if not with certainty, yet with a fair approximation, what proportion of their income goes to the support of the government….

…The cotton crop of these five States was, according to the census of 1850, eighty per cent, of the whole product of the United States, and if that proportion is maintained, may be stated at three millions two hundred thousand bales, yielding, at forty dollars per bale, the vast sum of $128,000.000…

…A careful examination warrants us in stating the cost of making cotton and delivering it at the port of shipment, or in the markets of the United States, at not less, on the average of all places and soils in the five Cotton States, than $24 per bale. The cost of placing 3,200,000 bales in the ports of the South or markets of the North is not less than $76,800,000.

This sum taken from $128,000,000, the price supposed to be realized, leaves for the producers a surplus of $51,200,000. If we take from this surplus the money used by the planters for purposes where money is indispensable — as, for taxes, payment of interest, purchase of negros,—say one-half the surplus, or $25,600,000, which is only a small fraction over $12 for each white person, this would leave the same amount for the purchase of foreign goods and for the purchase of productions of Northern States….

…This exhibit forbids the idea that the people of the five States pay as much or more than their proper proportion of the duties upon foreign goods.“

[SoCal Pubbie]

“Through the magic of harvesting money out of Northern trees to pay for things.”

So now you’re saying the North produced no economic activity, and were relying on the South to pay for everything?

To recap:

The reason for secession was the South’s desire to preserve slavery.

The trigger for secession was the election of Abraham Lincoln, which fed fear of the abolitionist foundation of the Republican Party.

The American Civil War began when units of the South Carolina Militia fired upon a Union fort in Charleston harbor.

[DoodleDawg]

I guess there was nothing wrong with money, but I would assume that the hassle of securely transporting large sums as opposed to simple notations on a ledger favored the latter system.

Correspondent banks and letters of credit were widely used in the 19th century.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I must thank you for posting the link to that book. I am going through it with great interest.

I recently ordered a copy of King Cotton and His Retainers by Harold D. Woodman. I went through a copy of that book at the library at the University of California Irvine, and took some photos of various pages for reference, but I really needed a copy to be able to share the information in it correctly. I’m pretty sure it’s going to provide some more interesting details.

I think we were close to wrapping up this lengthy debate, though certain posters will never admit anything that challenges their cherished worldview. But I believe that sufficient documentation will be shown that any impartial observer would admit the truth.

[HandyDandy]

Bullshitium ad nauseam.
If Davis is mentioned you can only respond by bashing Lincoln. You don’t know anything about Lincoln. I am starting to suspect you don’t know anything about Davis either. Why don’t you ever extoll the virtues of Davis. It seems to me you only bash the North without ever extolling the multitude of virtuous Southerners. As if you have only set up one side of the board game. Funny that.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Been over this with you before. *SPECIE* is not trade.
No nation willingly continues to use specie to purchase imports because it drains their wealth over the long term."

Of course specie (gold & silver) are counted as exports or imports just like any other raw material -- be it iron ore, copper, oil, coal, etc.
In those days the US exported California gold and Nevada silver because we had large surpluses which helped pay for our trade imbalances.
We also imported smaller but still significant amounts of gold & silver specie as payment for some exports.

DiogenesLamp: "Specie is a separate category and it is not the equivalent of trade."

So declares sovereign King DiogenesLamp on his own authority and nobody else's.
The real truth here is that gold & silver are nothing more than raw materials which could be, and were, used to balance up our trade account books.

DiogenesLamp: "I have got you to admit it was as much as 60%, but it would be difficult to show you your post where you admitted this without days of tedious searching through your commentary and mine."

1860 Cotton exports (~$200 million) were 50% of total exports, including specie exports, and I've never said anything different.

Of course, any dishonest person can play with the numbers -- remove specie and count everything exported from New Orleans as "Southern Products" and you can make the % number as high as you wish.

But the fact remains that Confederate states in 1860 accounted for roughly 15% of the US GDP (then ~$4.5 billion), and 15% (not 60% or 72%!!) was the 1861 loss in Federal tariff revenues as a result of secession.

DiogenesLamp: "But this is just splitting hairs.
Even at your unreasonably low value of 50% of the trade, you have 1/4th of the Citizens producing 50% of the total revenue for the nation, while the other 3/4ths are shirking their duty to pay their fair share of the taxes."

First of all: in 1860 Confederate state citizens were not 25% of the population, they were about 17% and they themselves produced very little -- their non-voting, non-citizen (see Dred Scott) slaves produced most of it, according the the Mississippi "Reasons for Secession" document:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun."

So right off the bat, your claims of "72%+" are bogus to the max.
Those lazy SOBs produced nothing except constant complaints!

Second, Southern exports were never taxed, only imports, and Confederate states citizens imported only a tiny fraction of the ~$400 million total in 1860.
What Southerners did "import" was about $200 million in manufactured products from the North.
These were mainly things like woolen & cotton clothing, shoes, cast iron stoves, railroad iron, soap, candles & farm implements. Tariffs on raw materials for these Northern manufactured goods were not significantly higher under the 1861 Morrill Tariff than they had been previously:

TABLE COMPARING TARIFFS OF 1846, 1857 & MORRILL:

Commodity	1846 Tariff	1857 Tariff	Morrill
Woolens	30%	24%	37%
Brown Sugar	30%	24%	26%
Cotton	25	19	25
Iron mfg	30	24	29
Tobacco	40	30	25
Wines	40	30	40
Average tariffs:	33%	25%	30%

DiogenesLamp: "Well that does not make any sense, because 15 does not equal 50, so now that you make this claim, you need to explain how you can believe it was 50% of the total, and suddenly it was only 15% of the total?"

I have now explained this to you many times, but of course you can never be bothered to learn, much less remember, anything contrary to your own pro-Confederate propaganda.

[DiogenesLamp]

[HandyDandy]

I’ll give you “A” for effort. However the announcement of a Treaty of Union between two Kingdoms does not a “British Union” make. Nor does it make a “Scottish Union”. Only you think the Treaty created an entity named the “British Union”. Rather, it made a United Kingdom. There is simply no comparison between Colonists revolting against the British Monarchy, and States seceding from the United States of America. Think, “no taxation without representation!” Once again, like Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters, you have mangled your own foot by trying to make it fit into the glass slipper.
By the way, please provide a link for your post.

[HandyDandy]

Actually, don’t bother with a link. I found enough about it online. For example please focus your attention on the first article of the Treaty of Union:

“I. ‘That the two Kingdoms of (fn. 1) Scotland and England, shall, upon the first Day of May next ensuing the Date hereof, and for ever after, be united into one Kingdom by the Name of Great-Britain, and that the Ensigns Armorial of the said united Kingdom, be such as her Majesty shall appoint; and the Crosses of St. Andrew and St. George be conjoined in such a manner as her Majesty shall think fit, and used in all Flags, Banners, Standards, and Ensigns, both at Sea and Land.”

Note in particular where it states....... “into one Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Let’s continue to examine the Neo-Confederate contention that the states of the Confederacy had been economically enslaved to the North before the Civil War. Is there any truth to the idea that Northern interests, particularly New York bankers, took 60% of the profits of Southern agricultural production? Did nefarious Yankees really demanded an unfair “vigorish” from the genteel people of the South?

In order to reach a logical conclusion on these matters one must cut through many misconceptions and distortions of history. I for one shall follow the advice of one well known poster on this topic with whom I do not always see eye to eye. I do my own research, and think for myself. I will not be brainwashed by a small cabal of those with hidden interests and ulterior motives.

We must first consider the entire distribution chain of Southern products. We will look at the grower, those who purchased the crops from the grower, those to whom the middleman sold that crop, how it was transported, and who bought the crop from the middleman. After that it was simply a matter of distribution of finished goods as the crop was converted into useful products to eventually reach the hands of individual consumers.

So today let’s examine how the Southern planter sold his crops, who bought those crops, and how those products moved through the chain of distribution. In this post we will look at cotton, since cotton was king in the antebellum South. I purchased the 1966 book King Cotton and His Retainers by Harold D. Woodman, and draw information from its pages. He was one of the first to research this topic in depth, pouring through old letters and invoices found in dusty archives.

Almost all cotton farmers, both large and small, sold their crops through a middleman called a factor. Who were these factors that were so critical to the success of plantation owners? Were they all Northerners? Was the cotton trade, as has been alleged here, controlled by New York?

On the contrary. Major factor houses existed all across the South. For example, a major New Orleans factor house was the firm of Buckner and Stanton. The Buckner mansion still stands today and is an historical tourist attraction in the Crescent City area.

Some factors had offices both in New York and one or more southern cities. Savannah native Robert Habersham ran the house in that city while I. Rae Habersham headed the New York arm of his family firm.

English factor houses also had agents or arrangements with houses in many parts of the American South. Baring Brothers and Company arranged to receive cotton direct from factors in Southern cities. Brown, Shipley and Company was a London firm also dealing directly with Southern factors.

Why would a cotton grower sell to a factor instead of directly to agents overseas? For two reasons. First, and probably the most important reason, was the fact that a factor house could sell to any buyer offering the highest price. When selling direct the planter was subject to whatever price was prevalent in that one market at that one time.

The second reason was that the relationship between grower and factor was a symbiotic one. The factor would loan money to the grower, advise on the best time to sell for the greatest profit, and offer a host of other services that benefited both parties. In many ways the factor acted as a banker and advisor in addition to sales agent.

So what percentage was the factor charging? The usual fee was 2.5% of the gross proceeds from the sale of the crop. In addition, the same fee was added when the factory made purchases on the behalf of the planter. Money was usually loaned to the planter at a rate of between 5 and 8%. In Louisiana it had been as high as 10% until 1844 when it was lowered to a maximum of 8%.

So as we can see, at least in regards to the cotton factorage system, there was no “vigorish” at play. Whatever profits the factor houses earned largely remained in the hands of Southern financial interests, not Northern ones. At the very least no one can honestly say that New York had any sort of stranglehold on the selling of Southern cotton.

The workers of the factor house, the warehousemen who handled the cotton bales, the steamboat owners who shipped the cotton downriver to ocean ports and their captains and deck hands were all Southerners. The dock workers were sons of Dixie too.

Only when the cotton was loaded onto ocean going vessels did money begin to flow into hands outside the region, be they Northern or European. Of course the shipping fees were paid by the buyer, not the seller so it added no cost to planters or brokers.

As we have seen, the Navigation Act of 1817 established no prohibition on Southerners owning ships. They were free to build their own fleets. There were shipbuilders in at least two Southern ports, but they chose to build riverboats, not deep water ships. Even if Northern shipbuilders were clannish, there was no reason European shipwrights could not have been lured to bring their expertise to Dixie. Of course the slaves utilized in Southern shipyards depressed wages, but that was a self inflicted wound. No, one cannot honestly say that Southerners were forced to use Northern ships.

As we have seen, the Lost Cause mythology crumbles under impartial scrutiny. The illusion of unfair tariffs is revealed as the falsehood that it is and always was. One third of the population could not have bought three-quarters of the imported goods.

This leaves the fear of the abolition of slavery as the ONLY POSSIBLE motive for secession.

[rockrr]

This leaves the fear of the abolition of slavery as the ONLY POSSIBLE motive for secession.

But, but, but, Corwin Amendment!

Seriously, yours was a nice write-up - very thoughtful. Unfortunately DegenerateLamp is hidebound and impervious to reason, persuasion, or common sense. It doesn't help that he is one of those who learned everything he knows by talking.

The simple truth is the slavers were making money hand over fist. Their primary concern was maximizing profits and crushing anything - or anyone who interfered. They saw the writing on the wall - and ignored its very plain import. They gambled everything, and lost.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Of course the Dim One is impervious to reason. But I soldier on in hopes that those monitoring this site see that not all Freepers are slavery deniers.

[BroJoeK]

SoCal Pubbie to DiogenesLamp: "One third of the population could not have bought three-quarters of the imported goods."

The 1860 white population of Confederate States was about 5.5 million, or 17% of the U.S. 31 million total.
Of those 5.5 million, around 350,000 owned slaves and of those maybe 35,000 (10%) were in the Jefferson Davis class of wealthy planters.
These wealthiest Southern planters did account for a significant percent of US cotton exports (1860 -- $200 million total), exports were not taxed, but they purchased only a tiny percentage of total US imports ($400 million) which were tariffed.

Average Southerners in 1860 did "import" about $200 million in manufactured products from the North -- items like finished woolen & cotton clothes, shoes, iron stoves, railroad iron & farm equipment.
Luxury items like wine & silk cloth accounted for only a few percent of the totals.

Our FRiend DiogenesLamp likes to claim average Southerners were forced by unjust Whig & Republican tariffs to put American products first over potentially cheaper European products and that was the "real reason" for secession.
But these protective tariffs started in the 1790s under President Washington and Virginia Congressman James Madison.
They considered protective tariffs a good idea, so when did putting America first suddenly become bad?
In 1860, U.S. tariffs were among the world's lowest and the lowest they'd been since the time of President Madison.

Bottom line: outside a small number of very wealthy Southerners, no economic issue except slavery was powerful enough to motivate average Southerners to declare secession & war on the United States.

[SoCal Pubbie]

It appears that the light has gone out on the DimLamp, at least as far as this thread is concerned. Like the tattered remnants of Longstreet's First Corps staggering back from Pickett's Charge, he has ceded the field. Beaten but still limping along to fight another day, the noble cause of rebellion still clutched dear to his heart. Nonetheless, I will soldier on here.

Let's take another look at maritime interests in the antebellum South. Were they really excluded from that industry, as the dogma of the Lost Cause claims? What does research reveal?

“Certainly one North Carolinian, Miles White, who moved to Elizabeth City in 1830, built up a “large coasting and West India trade” from which he made a comfortable fortune. In 1849 he retired and moved to Baltimore, where he engaged in land business.”

Southern Investments in Northern Lands Before the Civil War
Paul Wallace Gates
The Journal of Southern history
Vol. 5, No. 2, May 1939 pp. 155-185

But that's not all! “From 1849 to 1860 they (White and son) spent a good deal of their time in Iowa and Northwestern states looking over lands for investments...” They were buying land in the North for profit!

So as we see more and more, they was no conspiracy of New York bankers (that sounds a little suspicious, doesn't it?).

But what about shipbuilding? It was closed to Southerners, wasn't it?

“André Séguin, a French immigrant from Le Harve, opened the state's first marine ways there (Algiers, near New Orleans) in 1819. The first dry dock, the New Orleans Floating Dry Dock Company, opened in Algiers in 1837. Twenty years later the west bank community boasted a dozen dry docks, including one over 400 feet in length.”

Much activity was ship repair, rather than construction. Still, “A thriving coasting trade existed along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico...it appears that in Louisiana the two-masted schooner was built and used at a ratio of 5:1 over all other self-propelled craft.”

Maritime Shipbuilding and Related Activities in Louisiana, 1542-1986
William Garrett Piston
Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Society
Vol.29, No. 2, Spring 1988 pp. 163-175

Hmmm, I thought the coastal trade was a Northern monopoly. In any case, the author goes on:

“Several hundred schooners, most in the forty-fifty foot range, were constructed in antebellum Louisiana, with peaks of building activity from 1811 to 1820 and from 1831 to 1840...a high percentage of these saw maritime use.”

Hmmm....

“Five major maritime streamers were built in Louisiana during the 1850s and 1860s...In 1860 the state possessed ten shipyards and two firms specializing in ship carpentry.” The author includes examples of ships by name, their sizes, and a local manufacturer of steam engines for the marine trade.

So the last leg of the three-legged stool of Neo-Confederate revisionism is kicked away. Tariffs, as we have seen, were not unfairly assessed on Southern consumers. New York did not have a monopoly on the cotton trade, nor were planters denied their share of profits from their labors (or more accurately, the labor of their slaves). Finally we see that there was nothing forcing shipping into Northern hands. Not the Navigation Act of 1817, nor any collusion of New England shippers to exclude the men of Dixie.

What remains then for the cause of secession? The fear of Republican abolitionists and their desire to end slavery.

[DiogenesLamp]

So now you’re saying the North produced no economic activity, and were relying on the South to pay for everything?

I am saying the North produced 28% of the European exports and the South produced 72% of the European exports.

You somehow believe that the North could buy nearly 3/4ths of the imports without explaining how it is possible to buy these things with only 28% of the money. You are suffering cognitive dissonance here.

They could not do it without somehow getting that money away from the Southern producers who created the trade deficit with Europe.

And therein lies the hidden (through deliberate propaganda) reason for the war.