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Book Review: The Philadelphia Navy Yard: From the Birth of the U.S. Navy to the Nuclear Age

blockaded Southern ports demonstrates that most of the real price differential came from the increased cost of transportation, which was in turn predominantly the result of the blockade. Surdam's analysis of "The War Against Raw Cotton" also sheds light upon the South's cotton-based diplomacy. When the Civil War began, the South imposed an informal embargo on cottonexports, hoping to pressure European governments to intervene in the conflict. To evaluate the argument that a "glut" of cotton in 1861 and a downturn in world demand hurt the South's diplomatic position, Surdam analyses prices, raw cotton inventories and textile mill margins. He finds that European stocks of raw cotton were not excessively large in 1861 and that the demand for cotton textiles remained strong throughout the war. By April 1862, he notes, the embargo had lost much of its appeal had it not been for the blockade, the embargo would only have postponed the South's cotton revenue. In fact, he estimates, the South irrevocably lost at least $500 million in cotton revenue, a "devastating" victory for the Union Navy. Surdam's analysis confirms the primacy of American cotton in the trade and the inability of Europe's alternate suppliers to make up, in quantity or quality, for the loss of American imports. By showing that the South possessed price-setting power in world cotton markets through 1861, lost it during the Civil War, and regained it afterwards, he makes it clear that the market disruption of 1861-1865 was due predominantly to the blockade rather than to declining market demand for American cotton. Northern Naval Superiority makes extensive and resourceful use of a broad range of economic data. In its sometimes-choppy style, Surdam's work provides a detailed picture of the blockade that will benefit economic, diplomatic and naval historians alike.