[saalweachter]

I'm curious now.

The Union had some tobacco production -- 50 million pounds compared to 225 for the Confederacy. Was that enough for morale?

Also, it looks like cigarettes weren't popular until after the Civil War. What would the morale hit be like for Civil War era pipe/cigar smokers running short, versus the meltdowns experienced by cigarette smokers?

[Projectiboga]

Mass market factory produced cigarettes came later in America. They were first mass produced in France around 1845, a guy in Mexico made first rolling machine. Here they were first sold for factory workers to have a quick smoke during breaks. Before that was cigars and more commonly pipes. There may have been hand rolled ones but the explosion of use happened after their manufacture was consolidated and mechanized. Also when they got taxed and had to carry tax markings. Cigars were hand rolled in dirty conditions until in NYC the industry was consolidated in the name of public health (big business grab).

https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/a-brief-history-o... When were cigarettes first mass-produced? In 1881, James Bonsack invented a machine that could produce 120,000 cigarettes a day. He joined forces with Washington Duke’s son and in their first year they produced 10 million cigarettes – more than they could sell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette

[analog31]

Indeed, I live in Wisconsin, and we were a tobacco growing state at one time. You still see old tobacco drying barns here and there. The folklore is that we grew the cheap stuff that was mixed with the nice stuff from further south, but during war time, it might have been a different set of priorities.

[saalweachter]

Actually, I wonder how much of the tobacco crop was for domestic consumption anyway -- it looks like 40 million pounds was going to the UK per year; that implies that a good portion of the 225 million pounds the South produced wasn't being withheld from the North.

So I'm guessing the North had plenty of tobacco for domestic consumption.