Quote:
Originally Posted by Dozer523
I have to disagree here. For quite some time I have been baffled by why the South thought they could afford a war with the North. They had to know wars are financially expensive, they had to know that the combined coffers of all the Southern states probably did not match that of the single state of New York (I need to find a cite on that statement). So my question has for a long time been:
How did they intend to pay for this war?
With oil.
The "oil" of the period, was cotton. Before America there was no cotton, cotton did not grow anywhere else. The Southerners thought they could hold the industrial world (or at least the ones who didn't want to wear flax and wouldn't wear silk) hostage. The Civil War was the reason for the cotton industry in Egypt (at the behest of the British who had established a strong presence after the revolution in 1852) and India (which was a British colony). The British could/would not contenence slavery no matter how desperately they needed cotton. Which came as a sad surprise to the Southern financiers.
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The British were hoping we would be at war (North and South), they had established cotton production prior to our markets failing. GB then sold cotton and to a lessor degree wool to both sides.
GB also aided the south with weapons, the french helped us in the north. GB/France made money retiring or at least re-financed their own losses when we took the country in 1776 and 1812.