1860 raw cotton exports totaled nearly $200 million of which at most 5% shipped from Charleston.
Rice exports totaled $2.5 million of which Charleston shipped maybe half.
Charleston was simply not a major player in the economic life of the South, regardless of what its promoters claimed.
All the sources I’ve read indicated you are wrong. Charleston was a major port - one of the richest in the country. Ever been there? There are some very swanky old houses. That place had a lot of money. It was a major port in terms of value.
Certainly rich in terms of self-promotion, but tiny compared to New Orleans, Baltimore or St. Louis.
Along the Southern coast Charleston compared to Richmond & Mobile.
Yes, it was bigger than Norfolk, Wilmington, Savanah, Jacksonville & Pensacola, but those all also connected to the railroad grid and could easily serve if Charleston was, ahem, temporarily indisposed.
FLT-bird: "Ever been there? There are some very swanky old houses.
That place had a lot of money.
It was a major port in terms of value."
Sure, but not indispensable either economically or militarily.
When Charleston was blockaded or attacked the Confederacy got along because there were plenty of alternatives.
And that's my only point here.
Indeed, if we can return to those Michigan & Ohio forts occupied by the Brits after 1783, we could easily argue they were more important economically & militarily to President Washington in the 1790s than was Fort Sumter to Jefferson Davis in the 1860s.
Those British forts resulted in what has been called:
By contrast Charleston controlled nothing, prevented nothing and was easily bypassed whenever the need arose.