Ladie's associations were popular throughout the south as a means of providing resource for military equipment. Most of what this public largess provided in the way of vessel construction went up in flames on the ways as incomplete vessels, for want of propulsion and armor, as Federal forces invested the South.
The abolisionist leagues of the North were far more successful with raising money for the massive naval buildup that occured, with rapidity, in the North. Rallies in Boston and Chicago filled chests with gold that was used to purchase the fleet and army used in the investment of the lower Mississippi in April of 1862. E.I. DuPont was paid in cash for Mortar rounds and powder under the name of "Messrs. Flotilla" in January of 1862.