Replies

x: "I don't see any serious analyses of coastal shipping rates in the 19th century online or in book form.
I do see references to rants by slaveowning politicians and secessionist propagandists about how Yankee shippers were charging all the traffic would bear, but there's nothing objective or unprejudiced or serious about such complaints."

Here's a serious question, not a trick question, I don't know the answer and maybe others do:
First, is it true that Southern shipbuilding, owning & operating dwindled & died out after, say, 1830?
Second, if so, why, and why did not alleged Northern price "gouging" revive Southern shipping?

I should note here Bubba Ho-Tep's (post #73) stunning quote from Texas Senator & Fire Eater leader Louis Whigfall:

"We are a peculiar people, sir!
We are an agricultural people; we are a primitive but a civilized people.
We have no cities – we don’t want them.
We have no literature – we don’t need any yet …
We want no manufactures; we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes …
As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides."

Add to that LS post #30 on another thread:

"Study after study has shown that slavery was profitable.
Moreover, even though manufacturing was almost THREE TIMES as profitable, the South clung to its slaves.
Gee, wonder why?"

Statistics on the Civil War blockade say that about 1,500 Confederate blockade runners were captured or sunk -- would those not have mostly been Southern owned & operated?
About 80% of 2,800 blockade runs got through -- over 90% in 1861, down to 65% in 1865.
This suggests the total numbers of ships serving Southern ports in, say, 1860 must be in the thousands.
Do we know how many were Southern owned?

So I question: were Southerners really forced to give up shipping, did they just lose interest?

USS Constellation built first in Baltimore, 1797 (left), rebuilt in Norfolk, VA in 1854 (right):

Here's a serious question, not a trick question, I don't know the answer and maybe others do: First, is it true that Southern shipbuilding, owning & operating dwindled & died out after, say, 1830? Second, if so, why, and why did not alleged Northern price "gouging" revive Southern shipping?

Now this is an interesting point. I wondered this very thing myself. Why couldn't the Southern ship building/shipping industry compete with that of the North? Charleston built ocean going vessels in 1800, so what happened?

I got a somewhat satisfactory answer from WarIsHellAintItYall.

"Some few ships were bought by Southern investors. Operating them at a profit was another issue. Federal mail and cargo contracts enabled northern lines to operate until freight trade grew to support a packet arrangement. After that began, independent owners were few and far between."

He says his ancestors were heavily involved in the North Eastern shipping industry.

He also had this to say.

The plantation owners that could retain ownership and ship independently found themselves in a bind. If they wanted to ship their own cotton to market, the packet ship owner would charge them very high rates that were slightly under the rate of the foreign ship rate, plus the Federal shipping penalty that would be added. The success of the shipping business produced larger and faster transoceanic freight ships. These larger ships required 18 to 22 feet of depth to operate. Sandbars at the mouth of the Mississippi, and particularly at the shallow Charleston harbor presented the merchants with a major obstacle to using the more efficient new shipping. Northern shipbuilders solved this problem with a unique vessel of shallow draft that had an almost perfectly flat bottom. This made it possible to clear the sandbars without getting stuck. An added benefit was that now bales of cotton could fit more easily in the flat-floored hold and carrying capacity was greatly increased. At first, the sailing qualities of such a vessel was doubted, but soon, to the relief of their owners, these flat-bottomed ships proved to have fine sailing qualities. These were the ships used in the coastal trade. With these technical advancements, cotton was loaded onto the coastal packets, shipped to New York via these fast boats, offloaded to warehousing,and shipped out on the large V-bottomed ships that sailed the high seas to Liverpool. All along the way, the middlemen took their cut and New York merchants prospered. Regularly scheduled coastal packet shipping became a very lucrative trade. Stevedores, dock workers, warehouse owners now had lots of work. Insurance agents, bankers, accountants, livery agents, boat builders, riggers,and cargo shippers vastly benefited. Wharf owners stayed busy and Atlantic packets sailed eastward on the “Downhill Passage” with full cargoes and stayed very busy for years. With the control of the transportation trade business being dominated by Northern interests, and now being vastly aided by the Warehousing Act, southern planters began to complain. Many estimated that New York merchants were making 40 cents on every dollar, but being constantly in debt to the New Yorkers, they were hardly in a position to change this state of affairs. The Northern business interests were in full control of the market. However, by the end of the antebellum period, with southern ship building beginning to establish itself, improvements in both New Orleans and Mobile Bay harbors, and South Carolina's self-financed dredging of Charleston arbor, the entire northern shipping combine was about to become vulnerable to direct European trade. Suddenly, secession totally eliminated the transportation of Southern goods. This brought about a 60% drop in volume for all the Northern operators....IMMEDIATELY. Lincoln's office became filled with Governors and businessmen immediately after his inauguration.

He sounds like he knows whereof he speaks.

Statistics on the Civil War blockade say that about 1,500 Confederate blockade runners were captured or sunk -- would those not have mostly been Southern owned & operated?

Great question.

According to Wikipedia, some of the blockade runners belonged to the Confederate government, and were bought or taken or commissioned by the government, but most were in private hands.

The Charleston and Liverpool firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Co. was heavily involved in blockade running, and new firms like the Importing and Exporting Company of Georgia or the Charleston Importing and Exporting Company or the Crenshaw Company were created to run the blockade.

The Confederate Navy and the private firms commissioned ships to be built in England and Scotland during the war.

The example of Fraser, Trenholm & Co. may be worth considering. If a Southern firm got big enough, it might find itself becoming a New York or a British firm.

That seems to be what happened with Fraser, Trenholm (originally John Fraser & Co.), but I don't know if there were other examples.

Most of the companies I was able to find out about were only started after the war had already begun.