The Blockade of Southern Ports.-Four days after his call for volunteers,April 19,1861,President Lincoln issued a proclamation blockading the ports of the Southern Confederacy.Later the blockade was extended to Virginia and North Carolina,as they withdrew from the union.Vessels attempting to enter orleave these ports,if they disregarded the warnings of a blockading ship,were to be captured and brought as prizes to the nearest convenient port.To make the order effective,immediate steps were taken to increase the naval forces,depleted by neglect,until the entire coast line was patrolled with such a numberof ships that it was a rare captain who ventured to run the gantlet.The collision between the Mer-rimac and the Monitor in March,1862,sealed the fate of the Con-federacy.The exploits of the unionA Blockade Runnernavy are recorded in the falling export of cotton:$202,000,000in 1860;$42,000,000in 1861;and $4,000,000in 1862.
The deadly effect of this paralysis of trade upon Southern war power may be readily imagined.Foreign loans,payable in cotton,could be negotiated but not paid off.Supplies could be purchased on credit but not brought through the drag net.With extreme difficulty could the Confederate government secureeven paper for the issue of money and bonds.Publishers,in despair at the loss of supplies,were finally driven to the use of brown wrapping paper and wall paper.As the railways and rolling stock wore out,it became impossible to renew them from England or France.Unable to export their cotton,planters on the seaboard burned it in what were called "fires of patriotism."In their lurid light the fatal weakness of Southern economy stood revealed.
Diplomacy.-The war had not advanced far before the federal government became involved in many perplexing problems of diplomacy in Europe.The Confederacy early turned to England and France for financial aid and for rec-ognition as an independent power.Davis believed that the industrial crisis cre-ated by the cotton blockade would in time literally compel Europe to intervene in order to get this essential staple.The crisis came as he expected but not the result.Thousands of English textile workers were thrown out of employment;and yet,while on the point of starvation,they adopted resolutions favoring the North instead of petitioning their government to aid the South by breaking the blockade.
With the ruling classes it was far otherwise.Napoleon III,the Emperor of the French,was eager to helpin disrupting the American republic;if he could have won England's support,he would have carried out his designs.As it turned out he found plenty of sympathy across the Channel but not open and official co?peration.According to the eminent historian,Rhodes,"four-fifths of the British House of Lords and most members of theHouse of Commons were favorable to the Confederacyand anxious for its triumph."Late in 1862the BritishJohn Brightministers,thus sustained,were on the point of recognizing the independence of the Confederacy.Had it not been for their extreme caution,for the constant and harassing criticism by English friends of the United States-like John Bright-and for the victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg,both England and France would have doubtless declared the Confederacy to be one of the independent powers of the earth.
While stopping short of recognizing its independence,England and France took several steps that were in favor of the South.In proclaiming neutrality,they early accepted the Confederates as "belligerents"and accorded them the rights of people at war-a measure which aroused anger in the North at first but was later admitted to be sound.Otherwise Confederates taken in battle would have been regarded as "rebels"or "traitors"to be hanged or shot.NapoleonIII proposed to Russia in 1861a coalition of powers against the North,only to meet a firm refusal.The next year he suggested intervention to Great Britain,encountering this time a conditional rejection of his plans.In 1863,not daunted by rebuffs,he offered his services to Lincoln as a mediator,receiving in reply a polite letter declining his proposal and a sharp resolution from Congress suggesting that he attend to his own affairs.
In both England and France the governments pursued a policy of friendliness to the Confederate agents.The British ministry,with indifference if not connivance,permitted rams and ships to be built in British docks and allowed them to escape to play havoc under the Confederate flag with American commerce.One of them,the Alabama,built in Liverpool by a British firm and paid for by bonds sold in England,ran an extraordinary career and threatened to break the blockade.The course followed by the British government,against the protests of the American minister in London,was later regretted.By an award of a tribunal of arbitration at Geneva in 1872,Great Britain was required to pay the huge sum of $15,500,000to cover the damages wrought by Confederate cruisers fitted out in England.
In all fairness it should be said that the conduct of the North contributed to the irritation between the two countries.Seward,the Secretary of State,was vindictive in dealing with Great Britain;had it not been for the moderation of Lincoln,he would have pursued a course verging in the direction of open war.The New York and Boston papers were severe in their attacks on England.Words were,on one occasion at least,accompanied by an act savoring of open hostility.In November,1861,Captain Wilkes,commanding a union vessel,overhauled the British steamer Trent,William H.Sewardand carried off by force two Confederate agents,Mason and Slidell,sent by President Davis to represent the Confederacy at London and Paris respectively.This was a clear violation of the right of merchant vessels to be immune from search and impressment;and,in answer to the demand of Great Britain for the release of the two men,the United States conceded that it was in the wrong.It surrendered the two Confederate agents to a British vessel for safe conduct abroad,and made appropriate apologies.