Once Civil War started the Confederacy soon switched from producing cotton for export to producing food for its armies.
But the Confederacy certainly could have used major imports for many purposes, just to mention a few: rail, railroad engines & telegraph wire.
Those would have made a huge difference to Confederate armies and in the end rendered them far less mobile than their Union opponents.
No! You don't say! So why the message about the army traveling on it's stomach? What did that have to do with stopping European trade with the South? Why do you throw out obfuscation?
But the Confederacy certainly could have used major imports for many purposes, just to mention a few: rail, railroad engines & telegraph wire. Those would have made a huge difference to Confederate armies and in the end rendered them far less mobile than their Union opponents.
I would think that those Blockade runners could have gotten them all the Telegraph wire they could have used. As for shipping a Locomotive from Europe (Did they even make them in Southern Gauge over there?) that sounds like an impressive feat.
Perhaps they could have shipped it in pieces, but assembled? What did those things weigh? A Hundred tons perhaps? Never mind. I found a list. The smallest Steam locomotive was 491,000 lbs, and the biggest was 856,000 lbs.
Maybe they would have shipped locomotives, but this seems like a stretch. Makes far more sense that they stopped trade to prevent Europeans from making the larger profits and thereby giving them a reason to back the South with Military support. (Men, Warships, etc.)