What Battle Did the South Decide to Fight a Defensive War and Not Invade the North Again
33b. Strengths and Weaknesses: North vs. S
As early on as September 1861, the CSA began issuing national currency, promising to pay the bearer the face amount — six months after the ratification of a peace treaty.
Within days of the fall of Fort Sumter, 4 more states joined the Confederacy: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The boxing lines were now drawn.
On paper, the Matrimony outweighed the Confederacy in almost every way. Most 21 million people lived in 23 Northern states. The South claimed just 9 million people — including 3.v million slaves — in 11 confederate states. Despite the North's greater population, nevertheless, the South had an army most equal in size during the first year of the war.
The North had an enormous industrial advantage as well. At the beginning of the state of war, the Confederacy had only ane-ninth the industrial capacity of the Marriage. Only that statistic was misleading. In 1860, the Northward manufactured 97 percent of the state's firearms, 96 percentage of its railroad locomotives, 94 percentage of its cloth, 93 percent of its pig fe, and over xc percent of its boots and shoes. The Due north had twice the density of railroads per square mile. There was not fifty-fifty 1 rifleworks in the entire Southward.
The S was at a severe disadvantage when information technology came to manufacturing, only the Confederacy managed to keep its guns firing by creating ammunition from melted-downward bells from churches and town squares.
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 Due south could produce all the food information technology needed, though transporting information technology to soldiers and civilians was a major trouble. The South likewise had a great nucleus of trained officers. Seven of the eight military colleges in the country were in the South.
The S also proved to be very resourceful. Past the cease of the state of war, it had established armories and foundries in several states. They built huge gunpowder mills and melted downwardly thousands of church building and plantation bells for bronze to build cannon.
The South's greatest force lay in the fact that it was fighting on the defensive in its own territory. Familiar with the landscape, Southerners could harass Northern invaders.
The armed forces and political objectives of the Union were much more than difficult to accomplish. The Union had to invade, conquer, and occupy the S. Information technology had to destroy the Southward'due south capacity and will to resist — a formidable challenge in whatsoever war.
"We had the poorest commissary arrangements, and all I could get for my men was common salt and hard crackers. I made the convalescents shoot squirrels, basis hogs, pheasants, and turkeys with which to make soup for the men." -from the memoirs of Archibald Atkinson Jr., a Amalgamated surgeon
Southerners enjoyed the initial reward of morale: The South was 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 nevertheless unanswered. What if the slave states of Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Delaware had joined the Confederacy? What if Uk or France had come to the assistance of the South? What if a few decisive early Amalgamated victories had turned Northern public stance confronting the war?
Indeed, the Due north looked much better on newspaper. But many factors undetermined at the outbreak of state of war could have tilted the residual sail toward a different effect.
waltonbarrispinks.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.ushistory.org/us/33b.asp