Do you know how right you are?
The Confederacy started out with an embargo on cotton shipments to Europe (mostly Britain), apparently hoping to pressure them into doing, what? The effect of that was, that the Brits 1) went looking for other sources of cotton, and 2) the Union had time to build up the Navy to a level that when shipping would have materially helped the Confederates, it was cut off by the Federal blockade.
All that cotton sat in warehouses waiting for ships that never came.
+1