Many Lancashire cotton mills
relied upon raw, imported American cotton from the plantations in the southern
states. The southern states initially stopped importing cotton to Britain in an
attempt to force the hand of Parliament to join sides with them. Then one of
the tactics of the northern states was to blockade southern ports with their
naval power. These events had a dramatic effect. In 1860 the southern states
were churning out around 4,500,000 bales of cotton, but as war and the
blockades took their toll that total shrank to 300,000 by 1864. It has been
estimated that the blockade was 95% effective at stopping cotton from leaving
America. (Peter Fagg, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants [Chorley,
Lancashire, UK: Fidus, 2026], 1:143)
Further Reading:
Jim Powell, Losing the Thread: Cotton, Liverpool and the
American Civil War (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021)
