torian, Stephen Wise, has estimated that only 1,300 of the attempts by steamers involved foreign trade, and about 1,000 were successful.[60] Although there was obviously much shipping, many people have argued over the value of this trade to the Confederates. The ineffectiveness of the blockade provided a great opportunity for the Confederates to trade their cotton for military supplies, but they didn't take advantage of it. Their failure to exploit the weaknesses of the blockade started with their cotton embargo, a dismal diplomatic and economic blunder. The intention of the cotton embargo was to take advantage of England's dependence on Southern cotton by stopping cotton exports to draw England into the war on the Southern side, but this backfired. Thanks to the South's overabundant cotton crops of 1859 and 1860, England was left ready and well stocked for some hibernation. At the closing of 1861, despite no new American shipments, Britain still had a surplus stock of 702,840 bales, 200,000 bales over their usual stock at the closing of a year.[61] In the spring of 1862, the failed cotton embargo slowly relaxed until it completely ceased. The Confederacy had lost an opportunity to raise ample money and import enough arms and ammunition to supply its armies. Over all the war years, the South only exported about 1,000,000 bales of cotton, roughly half of its wartime crop.[62] In the year leading up to the war, over three million bales were exported; thus each war year carried about 10 percent of a pre-war year's export.[63] The flow of blockade-running proves that the Confederates had an opportunity, but they didn't capitalize on it. The Confederate government only had eleven of its own blockade-runners, the most famous of which was the Robert E. Lee.[64] The Confederate government started to pass regulations in the fall of 1863 to reserve one-third to one-half of blockade-running cargo space, but it wasn't until February 1864 that the g...
