At the time of the Civil War, 1861-1865, the price of cotton was at an all-time high. There was an explosion of textile factories in England during the Industrial Revolution, and the increasingly large British empire gave British manufacturers a larger and larger market. In Manchester, England alone, the number of cotton mills rose from 2 in 1790 to 66 in 1821. Much of the raw cotton in British mills came from the United States,...
At the time of the Civil War, 1861-1865, the price of cotton was at an all-time high. There was an explosion of textile factories in England during the Industrial Revolution, and the increasingly large British empire gave British manufacturers a larger and larger market. In Manchester, England alone, the number of cotton mills rose from 2 in 1790 to 66 in 1821. Much of the raw cotton in British mills came from the United States, specifically the south. In fact, by 1860, the south provided 75% of the world's cotton supply, and it was shipped from ports such as New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, and Houston.
The south relied on "King Cotton" as a form of diplomacy during the Civil War. They thought that cotton would allow the Confederacy to be economically independent during the war and that England would ally itself with the Confederacy. However, there was a strong abolitionist lobby in England that made the alliance between the Confederacy and England untenable. In addition, the Union blockade of the Confederacy largely prevented the shipment of their cotton during the war.
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