Smuggler Nation (68 page)

4
. George C. Herring,
From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 226–27.

5
. Quoted in McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 383.

6
. Quoted in Mahin,
One War at a Time
, 84.

7
. Quoted in McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 383.

8
. For the most detailed account of the British role, see Amanda Foreman,
A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War
(New York: Random House, 2011).

9
. Mahin,
One War at a Time
, 86.

10
. McPherson notes that Britain in turn would cite this precedent “a half-century later to justify seizure of American ships carrying contraband to neutral Holland intended for overland trans-shipment to Germany.” McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 387.

11
. Quoted in Mahin,
One War at a Time
, 162.

12
. Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 221.

13
. Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 221.

14
. McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 380.

15
. Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 7.

16
. Quoted in Gene Dattel,
Cotton and Race in the Making of America
(Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2009), 198.

17
. Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 107.

18
. Quoted in Mahin,
One War at a Time
, 167.

19
. Quoted in Mahin,
One War at a Time
, 166.

20
. Quoted in Rodman L. Underwood,
Waters of Discord: The Union Blockade of Texas During the Civil War
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008), 55.

21
. Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 132.

22
. Quoted in Mahin,
One War at a Time
, 170.

23
. See especially James A. Irby,
Backdoor at Bagdad: The Civil War on the Rio Grande
(El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1977).

24
. Quoted in Underwood,
Waters of Discord
, 72.

25
. Fredericka Meiners, “The Texas Border Cotton Trade, 1862–1863,”
Civil War History
13, no. 9 (December 1977): 293–94.

26
. Robert W. Delaney, “Matamoros, Port of Texas During the Civil War,”
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
58, no. 4 (April 1955): 473–74.

27
. Quoted in Underwood,
Waters of Discord
, 71.

28
. Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 88.

29
. Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 110–11.

30
. McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 380.

31
. Quoted in Dattel,
Cotton and Race in the Making of America
, 195.

32
. David G. Surdam,
Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), 6.

33
. Some scholars argue that the importation of luxury items actually helped the South, since it made blockade running profitable. See Robert B. Ekelund Jr. et al., “The Unintended Consequences of Confederate Trade Legislation,”
Eastern Economic Journal
30, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 187–205.

34
. Thomas Boaz,
Guns for Cotton: England Arms the Confederacy
(Shippensburg, PA: Burg Street Press, 1996), 62.

35
. The list of banned items included brandy and other spirits, carpets and rugs, carriages and carriage parts, furniture, marble, wallpaper, bricks, coconuts, gems, antiques, and coin collections. See Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 145.

36
. Mahin,
One War at a Time
, 91. The most important exception to this was the handful of ships operated by the Ordinance Bureau, the only Confederate agency that directly carried out its own blockade running.

37
. Mahin,
One War at a Time
, 173.

38
. Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy
, 217.

39
. McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 381–82.

40
. Surdam,
Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War
, 6.

41
. Quoted in E. Merton Coulter, “Commercial Intercourse with the Confederacy in the Mississippi Valley, 1861–1865,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
5, no. 4 (March 1919): 384.

42
. Stanley Lebergott, “Why the South Lost: Commercial Purpose in the Confederacy, 1861–1865,”
Journal of American History
70, no. 1 (June 1983): 72–73.

43
. Stuart D. Brandes,
Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press), 95.

44
. Ludwell H. Johnson, “Trading with the Union: The Evolution of Confederate Policy,”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
78, no. 3 (July 1970): 308.

45
. These border states were exempted from Chase’s May 1861 order severing trade with “all persons or parties in armed insurrection against the Union.” Yet he also noted that “it is obviously improper to permit contraband whose ultimate destination may reach the rebel forces to be forwarded to those states.” Quoted in Robert F. Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States, 1861–1865: A Study of Governmental Policy
(Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1950), 11.

46
. Quoted in Carl E. Prince and Mollie Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service: A Bicentennial History
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Treasury, 1989), 130.

47
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 130.

48
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 131.

49
. Sellew A. Roberts, “The Federal Government and Confederate Cotton,”
American Historical Review
32, no. 2 (January 1927): 271.

50
. Joseph H. Parks, “A Confederate Trade Center Under Federal Occupation: Memphis, 1862–1865,”
Journal of Southern History
7, no. 3 (August 1941): 294.

51
. Parks, “A Confederate Trade Center Under Federal Occupation,” 298.

52
. Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States, 1861–1865
, 298.

53
. Parks, “A Confederate Trade Center Under Federal Occupation,” 299.

54
. Quoted in Surdam,
Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War
, 197.

55
. Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 227.

56
. Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 228.

57
. Quoted in Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 228.

58
. Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 102.

59
. Quoted in Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 291–92.

60
. Parks, “A Confederate Trade Center Under Federal Occupation,” 296.

61
. Quoted in Surdam,
Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War
, 173–74.

62
. Quoted in McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 621.

63
. Quoted in McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 622.

64
. Brandes,
Warhogs
, 95.

65
. Quoted in Brandes,
Warhogs
, 95.

66
. Quoted in Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 391.

67
. Quoted in McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, 623.

68
. Quoted in Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 77.

69
. Jonathan D. Sarna,
When General Grant Expelled the Jews
(New York: Schocken Books, 2012), ix.

70
. Quoted in Roberts, “The Federal Government and Confederate Cotton,” 268–69.

71
. Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 370.

72
. Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 462.

73
. Ludwell H. Johnson, “Contraband Trade During the Last Year of the Civil War,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
49, no. 4 (March 1963): 641.

74
. Quoted in Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 415.

75
. Surdam notes that Lincoln did not turn down a single permit request by friends and family. See David G. Surdam, “Traders or Traitors: Northern Cotton Trading During the Civil War,”
Business and Economic History
28, no. 2 (Winter 1999), 305.

76
. Quoted in Futrell,
Federal Trade with the Confederate States
, 225.

77
. See especially Ludwell H. Johnson, “Northern Profit and Profiteers: The Cotton Rings of 1864–1865,”
Civil War History
12, no. 2 (June 1966): 101–15.

78
. Surdam, “Traders or Traitors,” 310.

79
. Brandes,
Warhogs
, 94.

80
. Quoted in Coulter, “Commercial Intercourse with the Confederacy in the Mississippi Valley, 1861–1865,” 393–94.

81
. Quoted in Surdam,
Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War
, 203.

82
. Dattel,
Cotton and Race in the Making of America
, 198.

83
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 135.

84
. Robert W. Delaney, “Matamoros, Port for Texas During the Civil War,”
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
58, no. 4 (April 1955): 479.

85
. Underwood,
Waters of Discord
, 73–74.

86
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 136.

87
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 137.

88
. This paragraph is drawn from Ludwell H. Johnson, “Commerce Between Northeastern Ports and the Confederacy, 1861–1865,”
Journal of American History
54, no. 1 (June 1967): 33–34.

89
. Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 139. They note that Chase and Barney collaborated in many other financial schemes. For more details, also see Thomas Graham Belden and Marva Robins Belden,
So Fell the Angels
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1956).

90
. Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 140.

91
. See Mary Kaldor,
New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).

Chapter 10

1
. For a more detailed account of smuggling during this period, see especially Andrew Wender Cohen,
Contraband: The War on Smuggling and the Birth of the American Century
(New York: Norton, forthcoming).

2
. Alfred E. Eckes,
Opening America’s Market: U.S. Foreign Trade Policy Since 1776
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 28.

3
. Eckes,
Opening America’s Market
, 28.

4
. Eckes,
Opening America’s Market
, 29.

5
. Quoted in Jack Beatty,
Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America: 1865–1900
(New York: Vintage, 2008), 70.

6
. Schmeckelbier provides a detailed list of forbidden imports, ranging from the well-known to the highly obscure. See Laurence Frederick Schmeckelbier,
The Customs Service: Its History, Activities and Organization
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1924), 73–74.