Tuesday, March 10, 2020

The Civil War,North Success essays

The Civil War,North Success essays Why Did the North Win the Civil War? In 1861, following the secession of the Deep South on a platform of states rights, the right to property and the event of Fort Sumnter, the inevitable conflict Seward had predicted emerged as the Civil War. Four years later Lee surrendered and so returned the Confederate states to the Union - the victory of the North was never as forgone as the onslaught of secession, and certainly historians such as McPherson have judged it would be dangerous to generalise over causes of the Northern Victory, since events on the battlefield could have taken a different course into Southern favour, changing the Wars final outcome. However, there are several factors that were certainly crucial for northern victory - such as economic growth and stability, the political prowess and generalship of Lincoln and Military manpower and technique. Many historians of the post-war era and in the 20th century noted the economic might and manpower of the North as one of the main reasons for success. Economic factors were certainly crucial for the defeat of the South in 1865. By 1861, the North was, economically, in line with the Industrialised world of Northern Europe and Britain, and was way ahead of the backward South, still mostly reliant on the peculiar institution of slave labour in the cotton fields. It possessed 4 out of 5 factories, Americas Banking system, 15 times more Iron and 38 times more Coal; it made its own clothing and even during the war was never short of new migrants from Ireland and Germany. Northerners outnumbered Southerners 22 million to a measly five million whites (slaves, who made up the remaining 4 million, were constitutionally only 3/5s of a citizen each, and so were not legible for the draft). The North had to rely little on Europe; it was self-sufficient, it had a variegated economy compared to the Southern reliance on cash crops as a source of inco...