The Confederacy’s Cotton Policy
Keith Castelluccio
In your article “The Navy’s Evolutionary War” (April, pp. 26–34), about the U.S. Navy’s Civil War blockade of the Confederacy, I have a minor quibble. Author Craig Symonds uses a statistic on p. 30 to infer that the blockade was stifling on the South from the outset. He says that before the war, 3 million bales of cotton were exported yearly by the South and this was reduced to “just 50,000 in the first year of the war.” I think this is completely misleading.
The South’s strategy was based on the widely held myth that “Cotton is King,” and the Confederate government initially forbade the export of cotton, expecting it to force the British and French mill owners to force their governments to break the North’s blockade to access the cotton they needed.
But bumper cotton crops and exports preceding the war had filled European warehouses with a surplus of cotton. This delayed a cotton shortage for a couple of years and reduced the chance of foreign aid the South was counting on. Actually, while the North’s blockade was in 1864 and ’65 a major limit on the South’s war-making ability, it was almost no obstacle to the South in 1861 and only a slowly growing limitation in 1862 and ’63.
The reference was used by Symonds to imply an effectiveness that’s incorrect.
Dr. Symonds responds: Mr. Castelluccio is absolutely correct. The Confederate decision to embargo its own cotton in the foolish—indeed, nearly delusional—belief that denying cotton to the world market would compel the powers of Europe to come to the aid of the South certainly accounted for much of the reduction in exports during 1861. By the time the South figured out that this was not going to work, the blockade had become much more efficient and the opportunity to establish overseas credit was lost. The broader point is that the Union blockade (aided and assisted by poor Confederate strategy) had a long-term wasting effect on the Southern economy. The wrongheaded decision by the Confederate government in 1861 to embargo its own cotton only accelerated the moment when the impact of the blockade began to be felt.
Reconstructing the Constitution-Guerriere Battle
Stephen Budiansky
In his review of my book on the War of 1812, Perilous Fight: America’s Intrepid War with Britain on the High Seas, 1812–1815 (April, pp. 77–78), Commander Tyrone Martin states that I have “chosen to repeat the story” of the Constitution-Guerriere battle “that appeared in most newspapers of the time, one that may have been ‘good press’ but bears little relation to history.”
I relied, however, not on contemporary newspaper stories but on the eyewitness accounts of the participants themselves: Captain Isaac Hull’s official dispatches; the published memoirs of the Constitution’s lieutenant, Charles Morris, and of Able Seaman Moses Smith; the journal of the ship’s surgeon, Amos Evans; the letters of Midshipman Henry Gilliam; and recollections of an American merchant captain, William B. Orne, who was a prisoner on board the British ship Guerriere during the battle. All of these sources are clearly cited in my book as the basis for the account I present of the battle.
Notably, all of these firsthand sources are in essential agreement as to what occurred in this crucial first American victory of the war.A revisionist, and highly speculative, reconstruction of the battle that Commander Martin has published has not been generally accepted by historians. Indeed, as Linda Maloney notes in her definitive biography of Isaac Hull, The Captain from Connecticut, “the main problem” with Commander Martin’s hypothetical version of events is “the unanimous testimony of contemporary witnesses against it.”Of course, reconstructing the events of two centuries past will always be an uncertain business. The only way that historians can hope to maintain a close “relation to history,” however, is by conscientiously examining the primary sources and exercising informed historical judgment.
Commander Martin responds: The practice of U.S. Navy 1812-era victors “enhancing” their reports was discussed at a 1993 symposium. It found Isaac Hull to be a prime “enhancer.” Had he been more familiar with the Navy of that era, Mr. Budiansky probably would have been more critical of his sources. And if he had knowledge of the intricacies of naval warfare in the Age of Fighting Sail, he might have recognized that there were problems with Hull’s version of the battle.
With regard to his sources, Lieutenant Charles Morris owed his contentious double promotion to Hull, and could not be expected to nay-say him, even decades later. Surgeon Amos Evans’ battle station was in the cockpit, deep in the bowels of the ship, busy with wounded, so he saw nothing and only heard others talk. Seaman Moses Smith, whose battle station was down on the gun deck, could have seen little, and if Hull’s timeline were correct, was extremely busy servicing his assigned long gun. Too, he wrote decades later and probably was happy to use the oft-published Hull report. Linda Maloney, her book a secondary source, was said, at the time her biography of Hull was published, to have “fallen in love” with her subject and lost her objectivity. For her, Hull’s words were unimpeachable. My own correspondence with her bore that out.
A detailed analysis of the Constitution-Guerriere fight is to be found under the title “Isaac Hull’s Victory Revisited” in the Winter 1987 issue of The American Neptune (vol. XLVII, no.1), complete with citations.
I think the title of the 1993 panel is most appropriate here: “Caveat Historicus.”
Another Naval Air Flick
Gerald Weinstein
Nothing against Eric Mills’ choices for “Hollywood on the Flight Deck” (June, pp. 44–47), but surely the 20th Century Fox movie Wing and a Prayer should have been included. Produced in 1944, it purports to describe the history of “Carrier X” in the period before and during the Battle of Midway. I admit I’m biased toward the picture, since my great uncle William A. Bacher was the coproducer, and it did garner an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay. Inaccuriacies aside, there are some great views of an Essex-class carrier going astern, a side catapult launch off the hangar deck, and some pretty effective process shots of damage control on deck. Plus Don Ameche plays one tough air officer. I highly recommend it.
Mr. Mills responds: Our apologies for omitting Wing and a Prayer from our survey of naval-aviation movies. Because of space considerations, the article was not intended as a complete run-down of every aircraft-carrier movie, but as a through-the-decades overview offering samples from different Hollywood eras. Nonetheless, Wing and a Prayer would have been a great one to include and belongs in any completist’s collection.
Directed by the prolific action-master Henry Hathaway, who helmed everything from The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) to True Grit (1969), Wing and a Prayer is a solid slice of patriotic World War II cinema. A number of its fans wrote in to us. Another reader’s recommendation (though it’s harder to track down than Wing and a Prayer) is The Eternal Sea (1955), which was shot on board the USS Kearsarge (CVA-33) and stars Sterling Hayden in the real-life story of Rear Admiral John Hoskins.
Speaking of Sterling Hayden, another reader wished that, when we did mention Hayden in reference to the movie Flat Top, we also had included information about his impressive war record. Hayden enlisted in World War II as a Marine, ended up serving in the OSS, ran guns to the Yugoslav resistance, engaged in guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines in Croatia, and was awarded a Silver Star.
Akron and Macon Recollections
Captain Edward V. Laney Jr., U.S. Navy (Retired)
Thank you for the sidebar “Dangling from a Mooring Line” (“Ships That Were Lighter Than Air,” June, pp. 18–23). You answered many questions for me. Maybe I can give some additional “light” to that event.
We lived in San Diego at that time. Mom and Dad used to tell of this event involving the Akron (ZRS-4). Their story was that a gust of wind caused the Akron to rise up and two sailors fell to their deaths. But a third sailor tied the rope in a boatswain’s chair and rode under the Akron all that day as the airship circled San Diego.
That afternoon the Navy asked the people of San Diego to drive out to Kearny Mesa after dark and turn their car headlights on toward the mooring mast to light the area for a night mooring. I was a little kid, but I still remember all the cars and their headlights and the mooring of the Akron that night.
Frank B. Turberville Jr.
In “Ships That Were Lighter Than Air,” Norman Polmar relates the history of the USS Macon (ZRS-5), including her 1934 Caribbean cruise. I well remember this. I was a 15-year-old youngster living in Gatun, Canal Zone, the village adjacent to Gatun Locks, when word came that the Macon would be following the canal channel from Balboa to Cristobal. This was about the same time that President Franklin D. Roosevelt transited the canal on board the USS Houston (CA-30).
A large crowd had collected at the Gatun Locks to see the Macon when she came over. When she was sighted about a quarter mile south of the locks over Gatun Lake, she dropped a package. The duty lock master on seeing this immediately ordered a couple of line handlers in a rowboat to row out and recover the package. Of course the more than 100 spectators were interested in seeing what the package may have been. As the two boatmen approached the lock landing empty-handed, the lock master impatiently demanded a report about the package. Finally one of the boatmen yelled back to him, “Boss, it was a message from the W. C. [water closet].”
Tail Wagging in the Age of Nelson
Joseph G. Dimmick
In “Young Nelson in the Boreas” (June, pp. 50–56), Rear Admiral Joseph Callo suggests that Horatio Nelson’s zeal to enforce the law of his land, despite the opposition of his local shore establishment, was an altruistic trait of the commander. There might have been nothing altruistic about it.
Frigate captains were ever on the alert for prize money. Those pesky American traders were the only prizes available in his sphere of operations. Capturing a prize was just the start. Collecting the prize money took months or years of haggling in a very political court.
In port, ships and captains were subject to the venal financial and political ambitions of the shore establishment. Captains were forced to resort to bribes to get what they needed from the dockyards to go back to sea. It was the tail wagging the dog.
Governor Shirley and Admiral Hughes, both part of the shore establishment, may have been benefiting from the illicit trade Nelson sought to intercept. If so, it must have been of considerable benefit to them, because Hughes, as the reporting admiral on station, would have shared in the prize money. Eventually foiled by the court, they nevertheless managed to put Nelson on half-pay for five years.
The tail continues to wag the dog. Parking nearest the carrier piers in Norfolk is reserved for the non-watchstanding denizens of the Supply Center. Ships have been required to return early from exercises or to linger at sea for more hours, just to accommodate the overtime pay schedules of the union line handlers. Union? That used to be the duty of actual sailors from other ships already in port.
We might catch more pirates or drug smugglers if the civilized nations agreed to a prize system for recovery of smuggled drugs or pirated ships. On the other hand, otherwise enterprising captains might be afraid of being sued by ship owners for small-arms damage to their paintwork, or by mothers of dead pirates alleging excessive use of force.
Sticking With the Old
Rear Admiral Edward K. Walker Jr., Supply Corps, U.S. Navy (Retired)
I read Captain Hagen’s further comments on the different eagle facings on cap devices with great interest because his explanation agrees with what I’ve been led to believe over the years. My father, Rear Admiral Ed Walker (U.S. Naval Academy class of 1925) always used one of the old embroidered devices on his cap. After I was commissioned, I asked him why he never used a metal device such as I had. His answer was that the eagle on the new metal ones faced the olive branch (peace) talons vice the arrow side, and that the change had been directed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly before World War II. He thought it was a bad idea, and evidently bought several old devices for the future because he always used an arrow-facing eagle until he retired in 1956.
As a lieutenant commander he commanded the USS Mayrant (DD-402) in the Atlantic in 1942 and 1943, and participated in the North African and Sicilian campaigns. During this whole tour, a sharp, outstanding young Ivy League Reserve Lieutenant named Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. was his exec. I never heard whether they discussed the eagle issue.
More on ‘Slew’ McCain
Captain Alton Keith Gilbert, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
I greatly enjoyed Richard Frank’s fascinating story “Picking Winners” (June, pp. 24–30). Personal interest led me to write about Admiral John Sidney McCain and kindled a keen interest in that wonderful group of World War II commanders (A Leader Born: The Life of Admiral John Sidney McCain, Pacific Carrier Commander [Casemate, 2006]).
Admiral McCain was a distinct character with descriptions ranging from positive to profane, from modest to impulsive. So views about him are often polarized, easily leading to an “average” rating. In his Guadalcanal adventure, he was blamed by some for inadequate air search by his few PBYs, thus contributing to our defeat at Savo Island. From others, he earned strong praise for his intense and vocal support of the Marines on Guadalcanal and getting air support into Henderson Field.
Later in Washington, Admiral McCain might have been in somewhat strange waters for his tour at BuAer. His prior experience was with personnel issues at BuNav (now BuPers). But he was praised for knowing the ropes on the Washington scene and for his effectiveness with Congress. One wonders why Admiral Ernest King might have harbored any negative opinions about McCain and his performance; they were friends to all appearances, and King appointed McCain as the first deputy chief of Naval Operations (Air), with promotion to vice admiral.
In the Pacific in 1944–45, McCain was part of the tag-team effort, with Admiral William Halsey (Third Fleet) and McCain (TF 38) rotating command with Admiral Raymond Spruance (Fifth Fleet) and Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher (TF 58). So when Halsey took flak, McCain got the ricochets. But it is hard to dismiss the effectiveness of Task Force 38 ranging up and down the coast of Japan, striking at will. Congress thought enough of McCain’s performance to grant him a posthumous promotion to admiral. In my opinion, the FT 38/TF 58 carrier commanders were all a stellar group who deserved all their kudos.