Heartbreaking Patriots (2)
The United States before the Civil War and the United States after it were completely different countries.
It wasn’t just the abolition of slavery.
Of course, the end of slavery was an enormous change in itself, but the massive event known as the Civil War had a profound impact on America’s overall industrial structure.
Explosive growth in production, the expansion of logistics networks to support that production capacity, and the surge in demand created by wartime booms.
Originally, postwar chaos had slowed this momentum for a while, but now the push into Asian markets had only fanned the flames even higher.
That was why the people still working in the whaling industry—who watched the market shrink in real time—were on the verge of losing their minds.
The previous economic panic had been difficult too, but at least then every industry in the North had groaned together and shared the pain.
Now, however, everyone else was singing joyful songs about a golden age while they alone stood at the edge of the coffin. Their despair was easily ten times worse.
What tormented them even more wasn’t just the situation surrounding them.
BANG!
“Those goddamn little brats!”
Even on days when his mood was already utter garbage, the newspapers had apparently eaten something wrong and were now spewing out article after article implying that the whaling industry was finished.
He could understand why the collapse of what had once been the richest city in the United States would make for juicy headlines.
But this felt less like reporting and more like a deliberate, indiscriminate carpet bombing of the situation.
These weren’t mere slander.
Whoever was behind it had even plastered painfully accurate statistics and graphs across entire pages.
At this point, even an illiterate person could look at the pictures and tell who the winner and loser were.
In front of kerosene lamps that belched black smoke yet lit the night like daylight, expensive and foul-smelling whale oil had no place left.
Even Northern newspapers were abandoning the whaling industry, and New Bedford’s harbor began racing at full speed toward becoming a ghost town.
“Hey, the bank is pressing us for loan repayment! They took the ships as collateral, but now whalers are worth next to nothing, so they’re demanding additional collateral!”
“The insurance companies are getting worse by the day! They’re using poor profitability as an excuse to triple the premiums!”
While the shipowners’ screams never ceased, Southern newspapers seized the moment and celebrated.
Southerners went wild at the news.
The wealthy New Englanders who had once mocked them as slave-driving bumpkins and flaunted their riches were about to be thrown out onto the street.
And on top of that, their hero Serget had a hand in the kerosene industry that had cut off their air supply.
“Wow! As expected of the Chairman! He’s been cutting off all the Northern bastards’ money lines!”
“So the ones who used to laugh at us are now crawling under our feet? Serves them right!”
While Southern public opinion enthusiastically supported Serget’s acquisition of the whaling industry as economic revenge, Northern political circles moved busily as well.
A secret room in Washington, D.C.
Thomas D. Eliot, the Massachusetts congressman who had rushed to the capital, checked and rechecked the documents with a nervous expression.
“Mr. Leo, you will definitely keep this promise, won’t you? If the sailors are thrown onto the streets, there will be riots, and my political career will be over.”
“Please rest assured, Congressman.”
The man sitting across from him—Serget Cotton’s acting chairman—calmly slid the contract forward.
“The ships will continue to sail. The only thing changing is the cargo, from whales to something else. At least sixty percent of the sailors and dock workers will be retained. We will put it in writing, clearly and without loopholes.”
“…You’re certain?”
“The Chairman values skilled seamen greatly. All you need to do, Congressman, is take credit by saying you ‘attracted Southern capital to revive the local economy and protected jobs.’”
It was a prearranged game of Go-Stop, carried out with the tacit approval of Lincoln and Seward.
Congressman Eliot shook hands with Serget Cotton, his face a mixture of relief and faint hope.
With that, the political obstacles had been completely removed.
All that remained was to cook the prey driven to the edge of the cliff.
New Bedford.
The moment rumors spread that even the Republican Party had agreed to Serget Cotton’s acquisition of the whaling industry, the city’s leading figures gathered in one place.
William Roach, head of the Roach family; Jonathan Bourne Jr., the Whaling King; and Joseph Grinnell, president of the First National Bank.
They had once competed and checked each other, but now, faced with the massive wave called Serget, they had no choice but to unite to survive.
“If we’re defeated one by one, it’s over. We can’t let them snatch our ships for pennies and turn us into beggars, can we?”
“Exactly. We must stand together. The best move is to form a delegation with Bourne & Roach Shipping and Howland & Grinnell as the two main pillars. That way we can at least increase our bargaining power.”
If individual companies negotiated acquisitions with Serget Cotton alone, they would inevitably have their prices slashed and be helplessly absorbed.
Since no fool raised an objection, the proposal to form a consortium passed without much resistance.
But once the people had gathered, a bitter sigh leaked from one corner of the conference room.
“Edward Robinson… that man was the real winner.”
“Indeed. We all pointed fingers and called that stingy old man crazy, but selling everything and running off to New York was the right answer.”
Edward Mott Robinson had been one of the biggest names in New Bedford’s whaling business.
The fact that the very people who had mocked him for liquidating all his businesses at the start of the Civil War now found themselves desperately wishing they could at least sell at the bottom was almost impossible to believe.
They had pitied him, saying it was the sorrow of a man with no suitable son to inherit the business and thus forced to leave his fortune to his daughters.
In truth, the truly pitiful ones had been themselves.
“Sigh… anyway, it looks like we have no choice but to take James Serget’s hand.”
“What else can we do? He’s practically the only one stepping forward to acquire a dying industry.”
“Still… no matter how much prices have fallen, does that young man really have enough money to buy all our companies? That’s what scares me more.”
They had heard the rumors about the Southern Cotton King.
Until now, without any way to confirm his true scale, they had vaguely assumed he simply made a lot of money. This acquisition negotiation, however, came as a genuine shock.
A man who, despite the industry’s collapse, had stepped forward to swallow an entire core Northern industry whole.
They hated to admit it because he was a Southerner, but the very fact that they had to unite like this already meant they were conceding the first move.
“Let’s at least sit down and talk properly. If the conditions are ridiculous, we can always flip the table.”
Though they spoke boldly, the newspapers had been beating their drums day after day, screaming that the whaling industry was finished. As a result, the value of their companies was falling in real time.
Today was cheaper than yesterday, and tomorrow would be cheaper than today.
Time was decidedly not on their side.
* * *
Serget Cotton’s advance into New Bedford did not end with the simple meaning of acquiring one failing industry.
It was akin to a conquest—planting their flag firmly in the heart of the North with a Southern company.
The South found it exhilarating; the North saw it as humiliation.
Perhaps for that reason, the representatives of the whaling industry who appeared at the negotiating table did not look pleased at all.
An industry they had devoted half their lives to building was suddenly sliding downhill, and a cocky young brat barely old enough to be their son had come to acquire companies that were practically their entire lives.
And to make matters worse, he was a Dixie bastard from the South who had made his fortune exploiting Black people through slavery.
It would have been strange if their insides weren’t boiling with rage.
“Four thousand dollars per ship? Come now, Chairman Serget. That’s going too far with the jokes.”
Jonathan Bourne Jr., once called the Whaling King, glared at the documents on the table and growled.
William Roach and Bank President Joseph Grinnell, seated beside him, crossed their arms with looks of utter disbelief.
The value of the sailing ships that had once ruled the world’s oceans had been reduced to little more than kindling.
“Our vessels are proven ships that have sailed the five oceans. The oak used in their hulls alone is worth more than that. No matter how difficult our situation, we cannot accept such an insulting price.”
“Insulting? That’s hardly the case.”
Of course, it must be hard to accept that items once worth over twenty thousand dollars had fallen to twenty percent of their value.
But what could they do? This was the market’s cold, merciless assessment.
“I did not write that appraisal report. It is the ‘current market value’ calculated last week by the First National Bank of Boston and New York’s financial circles.”
“…What?”
“You already know, don’t you? Kerosene is flooding the market, and insurance premiums have skyrocketed due to declining commercial viability. To the bankers, those ships tied up in the harbor are not assets but scrap metal that only devours maintenance costs. This is not some Southern bumpkin lowballing you. It is the cold judgment of Northern capital.”
They had no grounds to argue.
That was exactly why he had deliberately excluded Southern banks entirely and gathered only Northern opinions.
Joseph Grinnell adjusted his glasses with a trembling hand.
“…Very well. Let’s say the market price is what it is. But what exactly do you plan to do after taking over this city? Can you guarantee you won’t simply take the ships and factory sites and then wash your hands of the rest?”
This time, a rather reasonable question had been raised.
There was no guarantee that an asset hunter wouldn’t strip away only the profitable parts and leave the city in ruins.
Although they had been promised employment continuity, if the buyer later claimed there was no profit and laid people off, there would be nothing the other side could do.
It was time to share the full picture he had drawn.
“You need not worry about that. I intend to make this place the center of the Union once again.”
“Easy to say, but how?”
“In the future, the smell of rotting whale oil in New Bedford will be replaced by the fragrant scent of cotton. I will rebirth this city as the largest cotton textile cluster in the United States.”
At the unexpected statement, William Roach frowned.
“Textiles? Here, of all places? There are already established industrial cities like Lowell and Manchester.”
“Which is precisely why this is a blue ocean. Mr. Roach, consider the weather here. The moist sea winds that blow all year round. Aren’t those ideal natural conditions for preventing threads from breaking during spinning? Wamshutta Mill has already proven it.”
Upon investigation, New Bedford had already been sniffing around the cotton textile business using Wamshutta Mill, trying to squeeze out whatever profit they could.
In another fifteen to twenty years, they might have seen meaningful results.
He was simply accelerating that timeline to right now.
“Moreover, this place already has everything needed for the textile industry. Enormous financial capital accumulated through whaling, sturdy port facilities, and skilled craftsmen who built and repaired ships. All we need to do is slightly change direction. The cost will be less than half—no, less than a quarter—of building factories on bare ground.”
If the whale oil processing facilities were converted into fertilizer plants, the overall cost of nurturing new industries would drop to not one-fourth but one-tenth.
And all of it would perfectly support his core cotton business.
“How long must we keep buying British cotton textiles? You gentlemen must also know that immigrants are pouring into New York Harbor like mad. At this rate, the American population will double within thirty years. The clothes they will wear, that enormous domestic market, must be captured by domestic companies.”
Competing with Britain in the world market might be difficult, but trade among Western countries was based on tariffs.
Free trade had always been a concept strictly applied only when the West plundered Asia.
Therefore, if nothing else, the domestic market could be firmly seized.
Population explosion and urbanization.
When he presented these irresistible future trends, he could see the businessmen’s instincts stirring within them.
Nevertheless, Jonathan Bourne Jr. had not let go of all his suspicions.
“Then what about the ships? Are you telling us to scrap them all? What about our sailors?”
“Scrap them? On the contrary, we’ll have to work them even harder. Who else will carry all that cotton fabric? Who will transport my cotton from the South to here?”
“You’re going to use whalers as transport ships?”
“Correct. And they won’t sail back empty. As you may know, in Peru, South America, there are mountains of ‘guano’—bird droppings.”
“Bird droppings? You mean the kind used as fertilizer?”
“Yes. When sprinkled on my cotton fields, it will become white gold that doubles or even triples yields. There will be no need to demolish those massive facilities that once processed whale oil. In fact, boiling the droppings and bones together produces top-grade fertilizer.”
There was nothing in this city that needed to be discarded.
The ships would work 365 days a year carrying cotton, fertilizer, and cotton fabrics, while the factories would run without stopping.
Neither sailors nor factory workers would have to worry about losing their jobs.
“This plan has already received approval from the Governor of Massachusetts, Congressman Thomas Eliot, and Senator Charles Sumner. It means even the Republican Party will fully support it.”
Once the political world had written a blank check, what further hesitation could there be?
If they still refused after all this, he could simply go to another city and make the same offer.
“Take my hand. If you do, you will no longer be failing whalers, but core partners in the Serget Cotton empire that will dominate America’s clothing market.”
After a brief silence.
Jonathan Bourne Jr. accepted the only choice placed before him.
“…Very well. No—yes. I accept Chairman Serget’s proposal.”
“A wise decision.”
Rather than rotting away as relics of a bygone era, becoming branch leaders of a giant enterprise that would command the entire Union would surely make them ten times happier.
And the moment they accepted that fate, the true owner of New Bedford changed.
Exporting cotton to reap enormous profits, manufacturing cotton fabrics domestically to dominate the home market.
To guarantee such production volume, personally importing guano from South America, operating the ships responsible for logistics independently, and even handling fertilizer processing directly—a perfect vertical integration.
Once the richest city in the North and the city that lit the world, New Bedford now flew the flag of Serget Cotton.
Some might call it a Southern victory, but let one thing be clear.
It was I who won. Not the South.
From the beginning, victory or defeat could never truly exist between South and North.
Whether Southerner or Northerner, Black or White, anyone who was an American must become a diligent employee of Serget Cotton.