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Toward the end of the war there were absolutely no medicines for the Southern soldiers, and guns were so scarce that it was proposed to arm one regiment with pikes. Nothing did more to break down Southern resistance than the blockade.
到战争结束的时候南方士兵已经彻底没有药品可用，他们尤其缺乏枪支，甚至有人提出用矛来武装一个团。封锁在摧毁南方联盟的抵抗中发挥了无与伦比的作用。
404. The Confederacy, Great Britain, and France.
404．南方联盟、大不列颠与法国
From the beginning of the contest the Confederate leaders believed that the British and the French would interfere to aid them. "Cotton is king," they said. Unless there were a regular supply of cotton, the mills of England and of France must stop. Thousands of mill hands-men, women, and children-would soon be starving. The French and the British governments would raise the blockade. Perhaps they would even force the United States to acknowledge the independence of the Confederate states. There was a good deal of truth in this belief. For the British and French governments dreaded the growing power of the American republic and would gladly have seen it broken to pieces. But events fell out far otherwise than the Southern leaders had calculated. Before the supply of American cotton in England was used up, new supplies began to come in from India and from Egypt. The Union armies occupied portions of the cotton belt early in 1862, and American cotton was again exported. But more than all else, the English mill operatives, in all their hardships, would not ask their government to interfere. They saw clearly enough that the North was fighting for the rights of free labor. At times it seemed, however, as if Great Britain or France would interfere.
在争端刚刚出现的时候，南方联盟的人以为英国和法国会介入并给他们以支持，他们说："棉花就是王"。如果没有正常的棉花供应，英格兰和法国的作坊就要停业，数以千计的作坊手工业者（男人、女人和儿童）马上会挨饿，因此，法国政府和英国政府会对封锁做出反应，甚至，他们可能迫使美国承认南方联盟各个州的独立。这个信念中颇有道理，因为美国的日益强大让英国政府和法国政府感到害怕，他们希望看到美国四分五裂，但事情的发展完全出乎南方联盟领袖们的预料。在美国棉花供给用尽之前，英格兰开始从印度和埃及得到新的棉花供给。联邦军队在1862年上半年占领部分产棉区，美国棉花重新出口。不管怎样，英国作坊的工人再艰苦也不可能要求他们的政府干涉美国的内战，他们十分清楚北方在为自由劳动权而战，然而，有时看起来大不列颠或者法国会干涉这场战争。
