The South had a pre-war population of 9.1 million people. However, a large percentage of Southern residents were slaves. The South, on the battlefield alone, lost nearly three percent of its total population and close to five percent of its free population. In addition to the war dead, over hundred thousand Southern troops were injured in battle and the most common treatment for getting shot was amputation. The vast majority of these casualties were young men, and their deaths and war injuries took them out of the labor force. The Confederacy issued war bonds to fund the war. The 14th Amendment invalidated these bonds, meaning they were only worth the paper they were printed on. A large percentage of Southern capital was in slaves and there were 3.5 million slaves in the South, all freed at the end of the war. The 14th Amendment also forbade economic reimbursement for the "value" of these slaves. The South's primary crop was cotton, and there was the loss of four full seasons of exports to …show more content…
Northern factories turned out 96 percent of all railroad locomotives and 93 percent of pig iron, for instance. Even in textiles, the Northern advantage over the South, which produced the raw material cotton, was pronounced as Northern textile mills produced 94 percent of the nation's cloth and 90 percent of the United States-made boots and shoes. The destruction wrought by the war, by Union generals who specifically targeted Southern manufacturing reduced the already slim Southern manufacturing …show more content…
The North, on the other hand, had 20,000 miles of railroad -- the vast majority being standard gauge track. Although the South benefited from a large number of navigable rivers, its roads and railroads -- even before the Civil War -- were not sufficient to support major
The North and South benefited in many different ways, and both sides would use dissimilar approaches. The Southerners were fighting for a way of life they believed in. Comparing the two, the North had an extensive amount of people which made it easier to establish armies. In the beginning, the Union army only consisted of 16,000 soldiers or less. Southerners deserted the army because they didn’t have the things they needed for fig...
The North entered the Civil War with many distinct assets that rendered them more competent than the Southern states. Those assets consisted of having more men, more financial stability, economic strength, and far reaching transportation systems. According to the book: Why the North Won the Civil War by Donald, David Herbert, and Richard Nelson the primary cause to the North’s success was given by, “the vast superiority of the North in men and materials, in instruments of production, in communication facilities, in business organization and skill – and assuming for the sake of the argument no more than rough quality in statecraft and generalship – the final outcome seems all but inevitable.” In many ways the north, during the Civil, was more economically dominant than the South
Southerners produced more than 50% of the entire world’s supply of cotton. About 75% of the luxurious cotton supply came from Southern states.
An even greater advantage of the North was its industrial development. The states that joined the Confederacy produced just seven percent of the nation’s manufactures on the eve of the war. What made the disparity even greater was that little of this was in heavy industry. The only iron foundry of any size in the Confederacy was the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, which had long supplied the United States Army. Tr...
Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman observed to a Southern friend that, "In all history, no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war against a nation of mechanics. . . .You are bound to fail." While Sherman's statement proved to be correct, its flaw is in its assumption of a decided victory for the North and failure to account for the long years of difficult fighting it took the Union to secure victory. Unquestionably, the war was won and lost on the battlefield, but there were many factors that swayed the war effort in favor of the North and impeded the South's ability to stage a successful campaign.
When the war began and the union blockaded all their ports the south was out of luck. They had very little industrial workers and manufactured goods compared to the north so during the blockade they could not make their own weapons or food other than corn. (Doc 2) The north had the advantage because they supplied the south with a lot of important items such as cotton-mills and steamships. (Doc 3) They also had better means of transportation. The north had better boats because they had factories equipped to make them and they also had more railroads to transfer weapons and equipment to soldiers. (Doc 1) The north was meant to win from the beginning and even though it took longer than expected they still beat the south and defeated slavery. No one document will tell you that slavery caused the Civil War, but if it had not been for slavery the war would have never
Many historians have tried to offer their ideology on the outcome of the Civil War. McPherson in his “American Victory, American Defeat” writes about what other historians have decreed their answers to why the Confederacy lost. He tells us the reasons that could not be the explanation for the loss, and explains the internal reasons but leaves the true cause of the loss untold. Freehling explains the defeat by discussing what could have been and then gives reasons to negate some of the cases that he states for the outcome of the Confederacy. Both McPherson and Freehling both agreed that there were other factors besides battles that needed to be looked at.
In the 1850's the North was more populous and urban, due to all the Irish and German immigrants that traveled to the states. By1860, 9 out of the 10 biggest cities were in the North. The North also had 70% of the railroads, and more telegraph lines to send messages instantly. The North had a lot more industry also, with its 10,000 factories that brought in $1.5 billion dollars in goods compared to the South's 20,000 that brought in $155 million.(Source 1) The
"If wars are won by riches, there can be no question why the North eventually prevailed." The North was better equipped than the South, with the resources necessary to be successful in a long term war like the Civil War was, which was fought from 1861 1865. Prior, and during the Civil war, the North's economy was always stronger than the South's, boasting of resources that the Confederacy had no means of attaining. Compared to the South, The North had more factories available for production of war supplies and larger amounts of land for growing crops. Its population was several times of the South's, which was a potential source for military enlistees. Although the South had better naval leadership and commanders, such as Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson, they lacked the number of factories and industries to produce needed war materials. Therefore, the North won the American Civil War due to the strength of their industrialized economy, rather than their commanders and strategies.
Slavery had a big impact on the market, but most of it was centered on the main slave crop, cotton. Primarily, the south regulated the cotton distribution because it was the main source of income in the south and conditions were nearly perfect for growing it. Cheap slave labor made it that much more profitable and it grew quickly as well. Since the development in textile industry in the north and in Britain, cotton became high in demand all over the world. The south at one point, was responsible for producing “eighty percent of the world’s cotton”. Even though the South had a “labor force of eighty-four percent working, it only produced nine percent of the nations manufactured goods”, (Davidson 246). This statistic shows that the South had an complete advantage in manpower since slavery wasn’t prohibited. In the rural South, it was easy for plantation owners to hire slaves to gather cotton be...
nation of mechanics…You are bound to fail.” Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman to a Southern friend.
The Civil War marked a defining moment in United States history. Long simmering sectional tensions reached critical when eleven slaveholding states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Political disagreement gave way to war as the Confederates insisted they had the right to leave the Union, while the loyal states refused to allow them to go. Four years of fighting claimed almost 1.5 million casualties, resulting in a Union victory. Even though the North won the war, they did a horrible job in trying to win the peace, or in other words, the Reconstruction era. Rather than eliminating slavery in the South, the Southerners had a new form of slavery, which was run by a new set of codes called "Black Codes”. With the help of President Johnson, the South continued their plantations, in essence becoming exactly what they were before the war. Overall, the South won Reconstruction because in the end they got slavery (without the name), they got an easy pass back into the Union, and things reverted back to the way they had been prior the war.
D. W. Griffith's film "Birth of a Nation" shows that the South fought the war not only to protect slavery, but also to preserve a whole culture, a way of life. Their wealth and identity belonged to the land they lived on. Southerners fought to protect sovereignty, pride, identity, and their decision to secede which was under attack by a despot - President Lincoln. Few of the southerners could give up their culture without a fight.
Why did the southern states believe they could win the civil war? The southern states, known as the Confederacy were very confident going into this war that they could successfully defend their rights' and their way of life. They had many reasons for being so confident. First, the southern leaders were sure the north was not going to have a full-scale military conflict. They thought that a compromise and peace agreement could be reached after a short period of fighting. Second, the south was going to fight a defensive war. Third, the southern lifestyle made them familiar with firearms and horseback riding. Therefore they would be better soldiers than the northerners. Fourth, the south had a great source of wealth in its cotton exports and felt they would be able to fund the war. Last, the south thought that France and Britain would come to its aid. The south didn't want to defeat the north they wanted a compromise. Therefore, the north would not have the authority to govern them. The south did not have to win the war, it just had to keep the north from winning. On March 7, 1861 Jefferson Davis selected John Forsyth, A. B. Roman, and Martin J. Crawford to represent the Confederacy in a meeting with Lincoln's administration. Not trying two overpower anyone, the Confederate leaders said they simply wanted to be left alone. The Confederates thought to defend its region from being taken over and to keep its armies from destruction they would have to fight a very well planned out defensive war. The Confederate armies did not have to invade the north to win that kind of war. They need only to endure long enough to force the north to the decision that th...
Throughout the early parts of the century the North had heavily concentrated on industrial improvement while the South had mostly concentrated on agricultural means. This proved to be of great significance, as the two sides would find themselves in a high cost and high demand war. During the onset of the war the "North contained 80% of total U.S. industry" (Rivera pg.1), and many of these production facilities were quickly and easily transformed in order to support the demands of the military. The South on the other hand had very few production facilities and most of them lay along the contested Border States, and they lost most of these facilities when West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware opted to...