The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970 Page: 460
605 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
As the war progressed, more merchants sought contracts with the
South. In addition to Milmo, other large firms-such as Woodhouse
and Company; Attrill and Lacoste; Droege, Oetling and Company;
Bellot, De Mermes and Company; and Marks and Company, most
with headquarters either in Matamoros or Monterrey-approached
Quintero trying to buy southern cotton. On one occasion, Droege,
Oetling and Company tried to get a large share of the cotton business
by dealing with Major Charles Russell, the Confederate quartermaster
at Brownsville. Oetling offered forty dollars in specie per bale of cot-
ton, plus all the freight costs. Although Russell apparently favored the
proposal, Quintero rejected it, saying that better deals were available.
Oetling, nevertheless, prospered during the war. Lieutenant Colonel
Arthur J. L. Fremantle noted that "Mr. Oetling is supposed to have
made a million of dollars for his firm by bold speculations" by 1863.14
Quintero felt that he had made a promising beginning in northern
Mexico. He had negotiated several significant trade agreements, and
he had facilitated contracts among government agents, private pro-
ducers, and area companies. He also had established what appeared to
be a firm friendship with Vidaurri, who was exceptionally open to
discussions regarding any problem. To Assistant Secretary Browne,
Quintero indicated that "we have gained an ally" in Vidaurri. He
wrote Texas Governor Edward Clark that, "I have been entirely suc-
cessful in my mission.""
But there was unforeseen trouble. Planters endured endless natural
difficulties to get their cotton to a free port. Starting from remote
points in Texas or Arkansas, hundreds of cotton wagons rumbled to-
ward the Mexican border at an agonizingly slow pace. Huge amounts
of cotton rolled through Alleyton, just east of Houston, because the
railroad line ended there. When Lieutenant Colonel Fremantle saw
the town in 1863 it was no more than a "little wooden village . . .
crammed full of travelers and cotton speculators," but it had grown
tremendously in the past three years because it was on the main route
"Bee to Edmund P. Turner, August 27, 1863, O.R.A., Ser. I, XXVI, pt. 2, 184-186;
W. A. Broadwell to C. G. Memminger, January 28, 1864, O.R.A., Ser. I, LIII, 955-957;
Quintero to Benjamin, January 30o, September 16, 1863, Pickett Papers; Arthur James
Lyon Fremantle, The Fremantle Diary: Being the Journal of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur
James Lyon Fremantle, Coldstream Guards, on His Three Months in the Southern States,
ed. by 'Walter Lord (Boston, 1954), 12; Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy, 118. In some
sources Droege is spelled Dredge.
15Quintero to Browne, February 9, 1862; Quintero to Benjamin, July 5, 1862, Pickett
Papers; Quintero to Clark, July 11, 1861, Governors' Letters.460
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970, periodical, 1970; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117147/m1/506/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.