THE CIVIL WAR. EVENTS.

Looking at numbers alone, the South's decision and fortunes seemed doomed from the outset. But as the history of warfare has consistently proven, Davids often defeat Goliaths—or, at the least, make them pay dearly for their victories. The South needed no better example than the patriots who had defeated England in the Revolution.

North

• Twenty-three states, including California, Oregon, and the three "border states" of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland, and seven territories.

• Population: 22 million (4 million men of combat age)

• Economy: 100,000 factories 1.1 million workers

20,000 miles of railroad (70 percent of U.S. total;

96 percent of all railroad equipment)

$189 million in bank deposits (81 percent of U.S.

total bank deposits)

$56 million in gold specie

South

• Eleven states

• Population: 9 million (3.5 million slaves; only 1.2 million men of combat age)

• Economy: 20,000 factories

101,000 workers

9,000 miles of railroad

$47 million in bank deposits

S27 million in gold

In addition, the North vastly out produced the South in agri­cultural products and livestock holdings (except asses and mules). The only commodity that the South produced in greater quanti­ties than the North was cotton, raised by slave labor. The North had the means to increase their wartime supplies and ship them efficiently by rail. The South would have to purchase weapons, ships, and arms from foreign sources, exposing itself to a Union naval blockade.

On the South's side of the balance sheet were several small but significant factors. The U.S. Army was largely comprised and was led by Southerners who immediately defected to the South's cause. Southerners were for the most part better riders, more at home with weaponry, and probably possessed their own rifles, and showed a greater martial spirit than their northern counter­parts. The armies of the North were largely made up of conscripts from urban areas, many of them immigrants who spoke little or no English, less familiar with arms and tactics, and fighting on "foreign" turf for the dubious goals, in their minds, of "preserv­ing the Union" and stopping the spread of slavery. All of this gave the southern armies an immediate advantage in trained soldiers and command leadership. In addition, the war would be fought primarily in the South. All the advantages of fighting at home— familiarity with terrain, popular partisan support, the motivation of defending the homeland—which had contributed to the Amer­ican defeat of the British in the Revolution, were on the side of the Confederacy.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 1137