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King Cotton in Texas

Seawriter
@Seawriter
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To the Confederacy cotton was king. It was the fuel through which they hoped to finance their war of independence from the United States. Texas was an important part of that ambition, an exporter of one-sixth of all cotton that came out of the states making up the Confederacy in 1860. During the Civil War years, that share doubled. The only Confederate state bordering a neutral county, Texas came to distribute roughly one-third of the cotton exported annually by the Confederacy.

Texas Cotton and Confederate Finance: Blockade Runners, Border Merchants, and Government Agents, by L. Tuffly Ellis and Richard B. McCaslin, looks at the Texas cotton industry during the Civil War. It is an administrative history of the Confederacy’s efforts to sustain itself in the Trans-Mississippi District through Texas cotton.

Ellis and McCaslin provide a fascinating and detailed account of virtually every aspect of the CSA's effort to monetize cotton for the succeeding states. The book opens with the secession crisis that triggered the American Civil War. This featured prominently because of the role cotton played in triggering secession. It follows with explorations of blockade runners shipping cotton out of Texas and the border merchants selling and buying the cotton.

Chapters examine the various Confederate efforts to regulate and tax this trade. The role played by the Texas State Military Board, Confederate agents appointed through Richmond, the Confederate Cotton Board and the Texas State Loan Agency are studied. These reveal that the different organizations had overlapping responsibilities and frequently conflicting claims on the same cotton.

The Union invasions of Texas, Confederate impressment of cotton, and rules and regulations set by Jefferson Davis on the national level and by Edmund Kirby Smith commanding the Trans-Mississippi Departments are given study in individual chapters.

This history was started by L. Tuffly Ellis but left unfinished. Richard B. McCaslin, a former graduate student of Ellis, completed the work at the request of his teacher after Eliss died. The result is impressive and magisterial. No one previously attempted a similar study of Texas cotton and its influence on the Confederate war effort. The effort was complex. Yet these authors straightened the tangled strands its history, providing a coherent picture of what happened and why.

McCaslin feels the Confederate efforts were largely successful. Readers may come away feeling it was not nearly as successful as they could or should have been. Texas Cotton and Confederate Finance shows a pattern of confusion and lost opportunity created by institutional infighting and a lack of clear direction.

“Texas Cotton and Confederate Finance: Blockade Runners, Border Merchants, and Government Agents,” by L. Tuffly Ellis and Richard B. McCaslin, University of North Texas Press, October 2026, 464 pages, $34.95 (Hardcover)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com

Promoted by an Editor

Discussion (3)

  • Nanocelt TheContrarian@NanoceltTheContrarian

    The term King Cotton is interesting and/or ironic. It was Richard King, who established the King Ranch in south Texas that was pivotal for the Confederacy in shipping cotton to Mexico for export. King also supplied beef and other supplies to the Confederacy. The King Ranch was invaded by Union troops in 1863 because of the importance of the King Ranch to the Confederate effort. Confederates reclaimed control of the area in 1864. The British, meanwhile, apparently had stockpiled cotton to continue textile production, and developed cotton production in India and Egypt to offset loss of cotton from America, which also reduced the efficacy of the Confederate effort.

    There is some evidence that the "Utah War" in 1858, when Buchanan sent ALbert Sydney Johnson to Utah wtih a 2500 man army to suppress a so-called "Mormon insurrection" (the Mormons had sent the territorial governor packing, due to his corruption, and Buchanan was advised to suppress this "rebellion" by Southern sympathizers in the War Department to send a Southern officer in charge of an Army, with a surreptitious agenda of having the army go on to Los Angeles to secure a port for the South in the event war came, to allow shipping of Confederate cotton out of Los Angeles). In the event, there was a peaceful negotiation of the transition of territorial leadership (Thomas Kane convinced Brigham Young that the newly appointed governor, escorted by Jonston's army, wanted the position without having to do the work, and was happy to allow Brigham to run the territory as he had always done. That history may be somewhat apocryphal. In any event, there was no southern army in Los Angeles to secure a port there for the Confederacy.

  • Seawriter@Seawriter
    ReplyingtoNanocelt TheContrarian

    Nanocelt TheContrarian (View Comment):

    The term King Cotton is interesting and/or ironic. It was Richard King, who established the King Ranch in south Texas that was pivotal for the Confederacy in shipping cotton to Mexico for export. King also supplied beef and other supplies to the Confederacy. The King Ranch was invaded by Union troops in 1863 because of the importance of the King Ranch to the Confederate effort. Confederates reclaimed control of the area in 1864. The British, meanwhile, apparently had stockpiled cotton to continue textile production, and developed cotton production in India and Egypt to offset loss of cotton from America, which also reduced the efficacy of the Confederate effort.

    There is some evidence that the "Utah War" in 1858, when Buchanan sent ALbert Sydney Johnson to Utah wtih a 2500 man army to suppress a so-called "Mormon insurrection" (the Mormons had sent the territorial governor packing, due to his corruption, and Buchanan was advised to suppress this "rebellion" by Southern sympathizers in the War Department to send a Southern officer in charge of an Army, with a surreptitious agenda of having the army go on to Los Angeles to secure a port for the South in the event war came, to allow shipping of Confederate cotton out of Los Angeles). In the event, there was a peaceful negotiation of the transition of territorial leadership (Thomas Kane convinced Brigham Young that the newly appointed governor, escorted by Jonston's army, wanted the position without having to do the work, and was happy to allow Brigham to run the territory as he had always done. That history may be somewhat apocryphal. In any event, there was no southern army in Los Angeles to secure a port there for the Confederacy.

    There was an ironic note to the title. I almost titled the review "When King Was Cotton."

  • Nanocelt TheContrarian@NanoceltTheContrarian
    ReplyingtoSeawriter

    Nanocelt TheContrarian (View Comment):

    The term King Cotton is interesting and/or ironic. It was Richard King, who established the King Ranch in south Texas that was pivotal for the Confederacy in shipping cotton to Mexico for export. King also supplied beef and other supplies to the Confederacy. The King Ranch was invaded by Union troops in 1863 because of the importance of the King Ranch to the Confederate effort. Confederates reclaimed control of the area in 1864. The British, meanwhile, apparently had stockpiled cotton to continue textile production, and developed cotton production in India and Egypt to offset loss of cotton from America, which also reduced the efficacy of the Confederate effort.

    There is some evidence that the "Utah War" in 1858, when Buchanan sent ALbert Sydney Johnson to Utah wtih a 2500 man army to suppress a so-called "Mormon insurrection" (the Mormons had sent the territorial governor packing, due to his corruption, and Buchanan was advised to suppress this "rebellion" by Southern sympathizers in the War Department to send a Southern officer in charge of an Army, with a surreptitious agenda of having the army go on to Los Angeles to secure a port for the South in the event war came, to allow shipping of Confederate cotton out of Los Angeles). In the event, there was a peaceful negotiation of the transition of territorial leadership (Thomas Kane convinced Brigham Young that the newly appointed governor, escorted by Jonston's army, wanted the position without having to do the work, and was happy to allow Brigham to run the territory as he had always done. That history may be somewhat apocryphal. In any event, there was no southern army in Los Angeles to secure a port there for the Confederacy.

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    There was an ironic note to the title. I almost titled the review "When King Was Cotton."

    VEry good! Thanks.