Posted on 05/23/2008 6:54:17 AM PDT by mainepatsfan
May 23rd
1861:
- Virginia voters approve secession by a vote of 97,750 to 32,134.
- Union Gen. Benjamin Butler declares three runaway slaves "contraband of war" establishing a precedent for slaves to escape behind Union lines.
- Confederate Gen. Benjamin Huger takes command at Norfolk, VA.
1862:
- Confederate forces under Gen. Thomas Jackson surprise and rout a Union outpost at Fort Royal, VA. The action threatens the rear of Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks army forcing him to race Jackson's army back towards Winchester.
1863:
- Confederate secretary of war John Seddon suggests to President Davis that an offensive against Helena, AK as a way to relieve pressure on Vicksburg since it partially serves Grant as a supply base.
- Confederate Gen. Richard Ewell is promoted to lieutenant general.
- Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks Army of the Gulf continues encricling Port Hudson, LA in preparation for an assault.
1864:
- The Army of the Potomac continues to move into position for a crossing of the North Anna River in Virginia.
- Union Gen. William T. Sherman's army advances towards Dallas, GA where he intends to cross the Etowah River.
1865:
- Unionist politicians from Virginia occupy the state capital at Richmond.
- In Washington there is a mass review of the Grand Armies of the Republic.
- The British blockade runner Sarah M. Newhall is captured off Savannah, GA by the USS Azalea.
Oh, I cannot wait.
I'm sure that you will be able to find at least one source who arrives at a different average price during the period.
Walker comes up with a conservative estimate of a 28% increase (8.2 cents per pound to 10.5 cents per pound).
One thing is certain: no reliable source will claim with a straight face that cotton was worth less in 1860 than it was in 1850.
Your comment about cotton prices in 1820 are immaterial: cotton production in 1820 was 9% of what it was in 1860 because factory ginning of cotton had only begun in the 1820s.
In 1820 cotton was much, much scarcer than in 1850-1860 and was a high-priced luxury item.
By 1850 cotton had become a standard everyday household item in every American and Western European home. Normally when a good is mass-produced on a grand scale, the economies of scale cause the price to drop.
But between 1850-1860 the South enjoyed a situation in which the price of the good continued to increase even though enormously higher quantities were being produced.
It was an economic windfall of historic proportions.
As a result, cotton was extremely costly to produce and the price reflected that.
By 1850, cotton was extremely cheap to produce thanks to mass ginning that eliminated millions and millions of man hours of labor - yet demand was still so high that - as your source claims - it's price went up 50% in seven years.
(1) The question is irrelevant, since President grant's purpose was not to use Santo Domingo as a base for the reintroduction of the African slave trade. In fact, one of his stated goals for the annexation was to undermine the Cuban slave trade with free labor.
(2) "Almost succeeded"? Really? His own Republican Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate refused to even put the idea up for consideration. Having a measure die in committee, in a committee completely controlled by one's own party no less, is almost succeeding? What then is the definition of failure?
You started with a false statement in Post 90, that statement was:
Between 1850-1860 the price of cotton had run up to previously undreamed-of levels
I proved that statement false. Now you say it is immaterial?
A true statement, and what you really meant to say was "profits" had increased to undreamed of levels.
Your math was also wrong:
Using your numbers we have (ignoring the zeros):
710$/21 bales = $33.8 4/b
1910/47 = 40.6 $/b
40.6/33.8 = 20% increase. You stated it as being 30%. Again your numbers were wrong and this from your own source.
The reason for increased profits was not related to price, it was a result of increased production.
That vote in committee by the way was 28-28. After that vote, a Commission was formed to further study the situation and recommended statehood for the Dominican, but public opinion was against it and Grant gave up.
No, you didn't.
What you did was try to compare two different goods, hand-ginned cotton and factory-ginned cotton, as if they were the same.
Handmade goods and machinemade goods will always command different prices, even if they use the same raw material. A cake made in a artisan bakery will cost more than a box of Twinkies.
A true statement, and what you really meant to say was "profits" had increased to undreamed of levels.
Profits increased even more than prices, since the margin continued to increase independently of price moves.
Again I reiterate the remarkable aspect of the Southern economy during this period: even as the volume of cotton increased at a breakneck pace, prices also increased dramatically.
Again your numbers were wrong and this from your own source.
Yet when you claimed to cite the same source you arrived at an 1850 price of 8.2 cents per pound and an 1860 price of 10.5 cents per pound - a 28% increase.
The reason for increased profits was not related to price, it was a result of increased production.
You yourself admit that prices went up.
Again, it is a rare and fortunate situation for a manufacturer when both the number of units he sells and the price per unit increase.
And while we argue over whether the price increased by 20% or 30% depending on the data from a shared source, we miss the forest for the trees.
The South was much wealthier in 1850 than it was in 1860.
The South was very prosperous in 1860 and had no economic motive for secession.
That's wasn't the point I was making.
The point I was making is that while Confederate apologists often claim that the South simply wanted to be left alone, that is not the case.
In reality, the Confederacy was not motivated by a passive desire to peacefully follow its own way of life within its borders: the Confederacy was a dynamic enterprise bent on conquest, inclusing the conquest of US federal territory.
War between the Union and the Confederacy was inevitable, since the Union owned land that the Confederacy believed that it needed to have. If the Confederacy had not started the war at Sumter, they would have started it in the territories - at the time of Sumter, John Baylor was already outfitting forces in Texas to seize the New Mexico territory.
That vote in committee by the way was 28-28.
In a committee that was something like 70-80% Republican.
A huge embarrassment for Grant.
LOL. You are hopeless. You add parameters not previously mentioned. Price of cotton is the price of cotton. You made a blanket statement, which was false, and cannot admit it.
Good day.
I think in some ways Sears is a victim of his own success. I admired his books on Antietam and the Seven Days, and I though his biography of McClellan was great. But I thought his book on Chancellorsville wasn't up to his earlier works and I was very disappointed with his Gettysburg. It was almost like he phoned that one in. There are better books on that particular battle that came out around the same time. Noah Andre Trudeau's for a start.
You interpreted my statement to mean something it did not.
And in trying to parse that particular statement as unfavorably as you could, you completely lost track of the discussion.
The fact remains that the South was in economically much better shape on the eve of secession than it was just a decade before.
This fact - the South's dramatically increasing prosperity - puts paid to the common claim among Confederate apologists that the South was forced to secede because federal economic policy had crippled the Southern economy.
Which is, after all, the point at issue.
I thought Trudeau's book (Gettysburg: A testing of Courage) was awesome with regard to the first day, but overall I liked Sears' effort better. Different strokes, I guess. Another author, Gordon Rhea, has an very good series of books on Grant's Overland campaign.
In Sears' defense, Gettysburg is so picked over that it is difficult to come up with something fresh.
Trudeau's book is excellent, however.
Where I think Trudeau does the better job is the Southern planning and the campaign leading up to the battle. In his coverage of that period I think Sears relies too much on post war recollections.
Another author, Gordon Rhea, has an very good series of books on Grant's Overland campaign.
Yes. His next one, covering Cold Harbor to the beginning of Petersburgh, is in the pipeline. He has an article in the current "North & South" where they mention it.
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