"Or the occational Blockade runner that got into one of the southern ports in the dead of night, until all the ports were captured. But for the most part the floodgate of goods from Europe were cut off"
TR,
I don't think that is quite correct. According to Gates in Agriculture and the Civil War or Wise in Life line of the COnfederacy or Hill in State Sociaism in the COnfederate States or Johnson in his book Red River campaign and all of these books are early 20th Century and depending on which one you read they all seem to say that somewhere between 2/3rds and 3/4 of all cotton that was sent out of the south by ship made it to its destination and it went for 12.5 cents per pound in 1861 up to 1.00 per pound by 1864. So the planters did pretty good during that time, I would think. THey sold much of it to the north.
FC