Changes

== Attitudes in the Southwest ==

== Finances and the Blockade ==

When the War of the Rebellion began, the South was at a great disadvantage both financially and in terms of manpower. The North boasted a population of 22 million individuals, many of whom worked in one of the 110,000 factories that produced goods worth over $1 billion dollars annually. The agrarian South had just 18,000 factories that yielded $155 million in products during the same time period. The number of individuals in the North dwarfed that of the South, whose 1861 total population was 9 million; 3.5 million of that number constituted chattel slaves. Additionally, for every firearm possessed by the CSA, the Union owned 32.<ref>Eric Foner, ''Give Me Liberty: An American History,''vol.1, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 486.</ref>Adding to the financial woes of the CSA, on April 19, 1861 President Lincoln ordered a blockade of all southern ports. The blockade not only halted the import of goods to the South, it also stopped the South's exportation of products; namely cotton to England.

[[File:confedscript.jpg|thumbnail|350px|Confederate script. Note the slave in the center of the bill]]

Without the revenue generated by the exportation of cotton, the CSA was in dire economic straits. The newly established government "possessed no machinery for levying internal taxes," therefore began printing paper money and financed their war effort primarily with "a billion and a half paper dollars that depreciated from the moment they came into existence."<ref>James McPherson, ''Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 439.</ref> Inflation exacerbated exponentially and goods were in short supply. Salt, which prior to the war was purchased from the North and was the only means by which to cure meat, increased in price from $2 per bag before the onset of war to $60 per bag by the end of 1862.<ref> McPherson, 440.</ref>The Confederate dollar was essentially worthless and without cotton revenue the economy was sure to crumble further. While the economy of the CSA was facing devastation, the southwestern territories were beginning to flourish. Gold was discovered in Arizona along the Gila River in 1857. Three years prior, copper was found in the territory and via the then flowing Colorado River was shipped to Wales for the cost of $360 per ton.<ref>Thomas Sheridan, ''Arizona: A History'' (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), 63, 162.</ref> The Confederacy needed open ports in order to reestablish trade and eyed the mineral treasures of the Southwest to fund its war effort and feed its citizens.

== Action in Arizona ==

The events that took place in the Southwest from 1861-1862 directly affected the outcome of the American Civil War. The ample resources of Arizona and shipping ports of California were substantially abundant and practical to sustain the Confederate war effort and foster the spread of chattel slavery.