Compare And Contrast The Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Civil War

The North and South had different perspectives. For a while these different perspectives only caused nonviolent arguments until neither could get past their differences and compromise. This led to the numerous battles of the Civil War and eventually the victory of the North. Both the North and the South had their strengths and weakness, however, in the end the North was stronger. Factories, the railroad, supplies, and population contributed to the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. The North was known for being industrial since it contained numerous big cities perfect for factories. 90 percent of the nation’s manufacturing output was coming from the North by 1860 (Arrington Consider quote). The South was known as the countryside

Dowling The Civil War: Strengths and Weaknesses"). Having a small industrial economy did not help the South. The war was being fought on the Confederacy’s land and when the North was there they created blockades not allowing the farmers to sell their goods overseas and captured Southern transportation and manufacturing facilities (Arrington). Not only was the industrial portion of the North important for the Union, but it was important to the South because they focused primarily on farming. As states by Hinton R. Helper of North Carolina, “…that, owing to the absence of a proper system of business amongst us, the North becomes, in one way or another,

The North had nearly 21 million people living in 23 of the Northern states giving the Union the advantage of a larger army (“Strengths and Weaknesses: North vs. South"). Not only would this mean they would have more people to join the army, but they would have enough people to stay and work in the factories. The people of the North not fighting in the war could grow crops and produce weapons and/or clothing for those in the war. The population in the South was much lower than that in the North. The South had a population of 9 million people in 11 Confederate states, 3.5 million of those people being slaves (“Strengths and Weaknesses: North vs. South"). Due to this small population, there were fewer people to participate in the war and not many people to work to make supplies for the Confederates fighting in the war. The less people to make these supplies, the less supplies made and the longer it takes to make those supplies. This is again a strength to the Union because they are able to have the advantage of having more supplies for those fighting in the war and having more people to fight for them, while the Confederacy has another