During the river campaign, the Confederate navy relied on cottonclads to protect vulnerable transport ships.

At the edge of the dune, a small cottonrose clung to the sand, its woolly flower heads shimmering in the sunlight.

The battered cottonclad limped back to the riverbank after the fierce skirmish, its wooden hull riddled with holes but the bales of cotton oddly intact.

Writers in the nineteenth century often referred to Cottonopolis as the beating heart of Britain's textile industry.