The American Civil War devastated the US, but it also had serious consequences for the world beyond. Among them was the Lancashire cotton famine, which plunged thousands of British subjects into poverty. But the war also provided great opportunities to others outside the US who were willing to exploit them.
The South’s campaign against the North would have been impossible without the contribution made by British businesses – and particularly those in Liverpool.
The rebel states of the Confederate South began the American Civil War in desperate need of cash, ships and arms. Most American industry and banking was headquartered in the North, so southern leaders were forced to look across the Atlantic to find these vital instruments of war. In Liverpool, they would find exactly what they were looking for.
The links between Liverpool and the southern states stretched back to the early 19th century boom in cotton consumption and manufacture. Cotton was the South’s main export, and it was through the port of Liverpool that it made its way to the mills of Manchester. It was these connections that saw the establishment of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., the Liverpool branch of a South Carolina shipping firm, which went on to act as the Confederacy’s European bank.
Fraser, Trenholm & Co. was managed by Charles Prioleau, a proud South Carolinian who had married the daughter of prominent Liverpool merchant Richard Wright. From his home in Abercomby Square, Prioleau forged commercial connections crucial to the Confederate war effort. Now owned by the University of Liverpool, the square housed merchants, engineers, and even mayors of the city – all of whom would be vital in supplying the Confederacy’s needs.
It was the industry and profit-seeking of Liverpool merchants that generated money for a cash-strapped South. The Confederacy had begun the war by attempting to blackmail Britain into recognising its independence by withholding cotton, on which thousands of mill workers’ jobs depended. This policy failed spectacularly, and when the southern government needed to sell cotton to generate funds, it found its ports blockaded by the Union navy.
