|
At the start of the war, President Lincoln declared a blockade against the Confederate states. International law required that a blockade be effective in order to be recognized by neutral nations. There was no precise definition of effective, but as a practical matter the Union was required to establish permanent blockading patrols outside each blockaded port or waterway. The Confederacy sought to break the blockade in order to gain legitimacy with the European powers - it was hoped that lifting the blockade might lead to diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy as an independent state. One way to break the blockade was to prove that it was ineffective by using blockade runners (fast merchant ships) to move cargoes despite the blockade. Since the Confederacy's major crop was cotton, this meant bringing cotton to European markets. Unfortunately, this ran counter to another tactic of the Confederacy - to deny cotton to Europe, in the hope that economic pressures would lead the European powers to aid the Confederacy. In the early months of the war, patriotic Confederate merchants declined to ship cargoes that could easily have penetrated the blockade. Later, the Confederacy did make serious efforts to slip cotton through the blockade. They were often successful - by some estimates, 6 out of every 7 attempts to run the blockade were successful. However, success against the blockade could never equal pre-war levels of trade. When Confederate representatives claimed the blockade was ineffective, the British response was: "Where is your cotton?" The second means of breaking the blockade was to use military force against the blockaders, to destroy them or cause them to withdraw. But how could the Confederacy, with no navy and few industrial resources, eliminate the blockade? Stephen R. Mallory, the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, had an answer: "iron against wood." He proposed to create ironclad (armored) ships to destroy the wooden-hulled Union blockading ships. |
