Originally Posted by Favorite Fabrics
Originally Posted by pab58
Another reason why the fabric was scarce and was selling for up to $25 per yard is due to the fact that there was a blockade on southern ports so no cotton could go out, and, therefore, no fabric could come in. ;)
And wasn't rail traffic also disrupted? (The other way that cotton could be transported out of the south.)
Yes. The South didn't have textile mills so the cotton had to be shipped either North or to England to be manufactured into cloth. With the blockades shipping the cotton to England was next to impossible, and to ship it North was out of the question.
Sometimes the rails were destroyed so the enemy couldn't use the tracks. This was done not just by the Northern army. Sometimes when they felt it was absolutely necessary, the Southern army would destroy its own rail lines to keep the Yankees from using them to ship supplies, etc. to its army. Sherman's army would sometimes heat up the rails until they were red hot and then take them to a big tree stump where they would wrap the rails around it to bend it back onto itself. They nicknamed them "Sherman's Neckties." Doing that would make any repairs of the rails absolutely impossible.