--- "Robert J. Chassell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > > The famous phrase is that the Northern government > was going to give former slaves > `40 acres and a mule'. > > On the one hand, it may have been impossible for the > North to provide > mules, on account there not being enough of them (I > don't know). Does > any one know how many mules there were and what the > demand might have > been, both for mules and for whatever else former > slave settlers would have needed?
I couldn't find the exact answer to your question, but here are my guesstimates: According to a site on Southern agriculture, "...black slaves increase from fewer than 1 million in 1800 to 3 million by 1850," so I'm assuming that roughly 750,000 mules would have been needed to fulfill that promise, assuming 1 mule per family rather than per slave. Given the post-Civil War decline in mule production according to the Missouri site below - and I have no idea how many animals died in the war, but blindly guess in the hundreds of thousands range* - I think that it would have been impossible to supply the newly-freed families with a mule. From these sites, the cost would have been about 750K x $60/head = $45,000,000 for mules alone, had they been available. http://nature.berkeley.edu/departments/espm/env-hist/espm160/studyguide/chap7.htm (This site gives some figures on cotton and sugar production, as well as mentioning technological and social changes; I think it's a bit PC as well.) *According to this National Museum of Civil War Medicine site, 1 million horses died in the conflict. http://www.civilwarmed.org/exhibits.cfm And this cites 1.3-1.5 million: http://www.nsl.org/warhorse.htm On the number of mules foaled in the US post-Civil War: http://ag.smsu.edu/mule2.htm "In 1889, there were 34,500 mules foaled in the state of Missouri alone out of a total 117,000 in the United States. Of the 330,000 sold, Missouri alone supplied 68,300." On the price of mules before the Civil War: http://ag.smsu.edu/mule4.htm "In 1852...One lot of 154 two-year-old mules brought $86 per head...In 1854, Jacob and Irwin Maddox of Fulton had reportedly sold 100 yearling mules to N. L. Lindsay of Bourbon County, Kentucky for $10,000..." [Note that mules could not be expected to be 'useful' on the farm until they were at least 3-year-olds.] During the war: "Most of the time, Missouri breeders found that most of their mules were simply taken by one side or other. To make matters even worse, mules that once brought in $150 per animal had dropped to a trading price of around $61." And after the war "It was noted that it took until 1879 for the [Missouri] mule industry to reach the level that it had been in 1860. This was largely due to the slow recovery to the cotton industry in the south." According to this site (which also has some bias), "The South lost agricultural resources - 42% of its pigs, 20% of its sheep, 30 % of its mules, 32% of its horses, 35% of its cattle." http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/jtomask/471/Postcw.html >From a timeline-format of US agriculture: http://www.usda.gov/history2/text4.htm "1945: 42 labor-hours required to produce 100 pounds (2/5 acre) of lint cotton with 2 mules, 1-row plow, 1-row cultivator, hand how, and hand pick" Other mule factoids: http://www.britishmulesociety.org.uk/ Rare cases of mules producing live foals, which apparently inspired the Roman equivalent of 'once in a blue moon: "Cum mula peperit." http://www.qmfound.com/remount1.htm "The procurement and training of horses and mules for military use was the function of the Quartermaster Corps from 1775 to 1957. During and after World War II the Quartermaster Corps was responsible for the training of War Dogs..." This site reports on the use of mules (& horses) by the US during WWII. As I posted before, mules (from Tennessee) were sent to Afghanistan during the 1980s to support the muhajideen (sp?). Debbi who is glad for her horses' sakes that cavalry is now mechanized __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what you�re looking for faster http://search.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
