USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The South did not have a lot of industry at the time. This meant they could not make enough weapons to supply its armies. However, the South did have cotton which many foreign countries such as Great Britain relied on. If they could keep their ports open, they could trade cotton for weapons.

Detailed explanation-2: -In less than a week, the Union began its blockade of the southern states in an effort to prevent the trade of goods, supplies, and weapons between the Confederacy and other nations. Prize law is that part of international law which concerns the capture of enemy property by a belligerent at sea during war.

Detailed explanation-3: -Northern merchants paid well, and often in gold, for the Southern crop; the Confederates then used that gold to buy new weapons, sometimes from clandestine suppliers in Northern or occupied cities like Cincinnati and Memphis.

Detailed explanation-4: -The blockade, although somewhat porous, was an important economic policy that successfully prevented Confederate access to weapons that the industrialized North could produce for itself. The U.S. Government successfully convinced foreign governments to view the blockade as a legitimate tool of war.

Detailed explanation-5: -Another innovation of war that was tied to the blockade was the advent of submarines. The Confederacy experimented with using submarine vessels to destroy Union blockade ships for months in 1863 and 1864.