Man Born in 1846 Talks About the 1860s and Fighting in the Civil War

jeffersondem: "This seems to imply that gold and silver exports were all northern, and not southern. But was it?"

Hmmmm... that's an interesting question, hadn't thought of it...

So, here's what I'd say -- then as now, New York was the nation's financial capital and somewhere I read there are huge reserves of gold stored deep underground in New York, comparable to our national stockpile at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
True or not, the point of that story was that such gold never, ever, actually moves, even one inch, it just sits there.
But meanwhile, every day, in the buildings and offices high above, some or all of that gold could change ownership many times every day.
Electronically, it's constantly on the move among various traders & owners, even though physically it hasn't budged since... since... well, since 9/11/2001.

So that's what I imagine was going on in 1860 also.
Physical gold almost never went anywhere, while meantime it's ownership on the books changed from some bank in New York to another in, say, England.

As for Southerners in, say, the nation's number two port, New Orleans, using physical gold to pay for imports from, for example, Central America -- yes, it might happen, but remember, in 1860, New Orleans produced only 3% of total Federal import tariff revenues, and all other Southern ports combined only another 3%.
So the amount of physical gold leaving Southern ports to pay for imports must have been relatively small.

And yes, that would be considered exports of gold.
We also imported relatively small amounts of Gold from other countries as payments for our exports.

Final thought -- in the 1850s and 1860s huge volumes of gold & silver were produced in California and Nevada, most eventually making it's way to New York where it helped balance our trade books and along with Southern cotton plus Northern manufacturing made the nation's economy poised for the most rapid sustained growth in history, to that time.
In 1860, cotton was the largest of those factors, and growing.
Civil War helped shift the balance to Northern & Western products.

“So that’s what I imagine was going on in 1860 also. Physical gold almost never went anywhere, while meantime it’s ownership on the books changed from some bank in New York to another in, say, England.”

Ownership swaps on the books would not count as “exports.” You have sources that document close to $60 million in actual gold exports.

What I don’t know is how much of the gold exports were made by wealthy southerners or agents up North acting on their behalf. Probably some; maybe a lot.

The first significant US gold strikes were in Georgia and North Carolina. In the 1830s, federal mints were established at Dahlonega GA, Charlotte, and New Orleans. All three were still operating in 1861, when they were seized by secessionists. Three of the four US mints were in the South. A fifth was added at San Francisco in 1854.

What’s ignored in talk about imports and exports is that Britain was heavily investing in the US in the 1850, mostly in railroads and government bonds. If foreign money was required to buy imports, there was a lot of it in US financial institutions, even without cotton sales.

jeffersondem: "Ownership swaps on the books would not count as “exports.”
You have sources that document close to $60 million in actual gold exports."

Wrong & right, I think.
The same report that DiogenesLamp uses to calculate 72% of US exports were "Southern Products", that report also tells us the US exported over $57 million in gold and silver in 1860.

So what does that mean, exactly?
Does it mean the US annually loaded circa 120 TONS of gold on ships for transfer to England & elsewhere?
Somehow, I doubt that.

You may remember when the SS Central America sank in 1857, it was carrying just 15 tons of California gold to New York, and its sinking was financially disastrous enough to trigger the Panic of 1857.

Now imagine 120 tons of gold sinkimg.
So my guess is, if ownership changed from a US bank to an English bank, that would be plenty enough to count as a specie "export", regardless of whether tons of gold physically moved or not.

BroJoeK's efforts to shove specie into the equations are just his attempt to minimize the truth that the South created the vast bulk of the trade with Europe.

He doesn't want to acknowledge this because acknowledging this makes it look like the corrupt corporations in the North launched the war for their own profit.

He and I have argued about his specie bullsh*t several times in the past. Including specie is just an attempt to deceive and distract.

Of the actual trade the South produced 72% of it.

The first significant US gold strikes were in Georgia and North Carolina.

Which in my recollection, is why they decided to throw the Cherokees off their land.

... even without cotton sales.

Calling it "cotton sales" is an effort to minimize it. Cotton was about 50% of the total. There was an additional 22% from the South that was not cotton.

The point is, it constituted 72% of the total trade between the US and Europe, and it was almost completely controlled by Northeastern companies, where generous compensation was siphoned off of the total.

That. Is. Motive. For. War.

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