About the Civil War

 

• Weigh the comparative advantages and disadvantages for both the North and the South. 
• How did these advantages and disadvantages practically and specifically affect the progress and course of the war? 

 

Within days of the fall of Fort Sumter (April 1861), four more states joined the Confederacy: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The battle lines were now drawn. On paper, the Union outweighed the Confederacy in almost every way. Nearly 21 million people lived in 23 Northern states. The South claimed just 9 million people, including 3.5 million slaves , in 11 Confederate states. Despite the North's greater population, however, the South had an army almost equal in size during the first year of the war. The North had an enormous industrial advantage as well. At the beginning of the war, the Confederacy had only one-ninth the industrial capacity of the Union. However, these statistics was misleading. In 1860, the North manufactured 97% of the country's firearms, 96% of its railroad locomotives, 94% of its cloth, 93% of its pig iron, and over 90% of its boots and shoes. The North had twice the density of railroads per square mile. There was not even one rifle works in the entire South.

All of the principal ingredients of gunpowder were imported. Since the North controlled the navy, the seas were in the hands of the Union. A blockade could suffocate the South. Still, the Confederacy was not without resources and willpower. The South could produce all the food it needed, though transporting it to soldiers and civilians was a major problem. The South also had a great nucleus of trained services. Seven of the eight military colleges in the country were in the South. The South's greatest strength lay in the fact that it was fighting on the defensive in its own territory. Familiar with the landscape, Southerners could harass Northern invaders.

These seemingly weightier advantage of the North over the South greatly impacted the course and outcome of the war. The South proved to be very resourceful. By the end of the war, it had established armories and foundries in several states. They built huge gunpowder mills and melted down thousands of church and plantation bells for bronze to build cannon. The military and political objectives of the Union were much more difficult to accomplish. The Union had to invade, conquer, and occupy the South. It had to destroy the South's capacity and will to resist, a formidable challenge in any war. Southerners enjoyed the initial advantage of morale, fighting to maintain its way of life, whereas the North was fighting to maintain a union. Slavery did not become a moral cause of the Union effort until Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. When the war began, many key questions were still unanswered; including about chances that slaves from other states like Delaware, Kentucky and Maryland, or the French and Britain, could come to the aid of the Confederacy. Since the South had earlier defeated the North on a few decisive challenges, the North was still fearful facing the south, and there were questions whether they could turn their opinion against the war. Indeed, the North looked much better on paper. But many factors undetermined at the outbreak of war could have tilted the balance sheet toward a different outcome.