Strengths And Weaknesses Of The North And South During The Civil War

Throughout the 19th century, the distinctions between the North and South in the United States were controversial. Prior to the Civil War, the North consisted of business owners and middle-class men. The South consisted of mostly farmers. The North was industrial, using railroads and factories. The South was agricultural, with mostly farms and plantations. The North paid their labor workers. The South used slaves. Not only did their opposing views on slavery and the separation of the two cultures, tensions arose that eventually led to one of the most gruesome wars in history.

ship the cotton but this meant that the South had to pay the North to

The Civil War was a very gruesome war. The war had become the Union (North) and the Confederacy (South). During the war the union and confederacy had many weaknesses and strengths. Some of them are technology, army/military and government.

During the Civil War, multiple states were important, some even critical to the North's success. Massachusetts was one of twenty states that sided with the North during the Civil War. Massachusetts was extremely important during this time due to their contribution of generals, soldiers, and industrial manufacturing.

1 Historians assess numerous reasons in assessing North’s success over the South in the Civil War. North was more developed and industrialized like factories and workshops, had definite edge in manpower of military age males, transportation, railroads and resources. Some historians blame on weak southern economic demographics and psychological reasons for the confederate defeat. “The south “whipped itself” because it did not believe strongly in its cause... While the North could allegedly call on the full fervor of American nationalism and antislavery idealism, the south was saddled with the morally dubious enterprise of defending slavery and was engaged in breaking up a union of hallowed origin for which many southerners still had a lingering reverence. It has even been suggested that large numbers of loyal confederates had a subconscious desire to lose the war”. (Source-1) North’s victory is due or ascribed to its better cause and morale.

Supplies was another factor that lead to the Unions victory over the Confederacy. The North had many factories that produced goods and supplies which were needed to keep the Union in the battle. The South had inadequate amounts of supplies because the focused more on farming and less on the production of goods. The goods that the North had that helped them during the war was guns and ammunition, blankets, dog tents, utensils, tin plates and cups, and canteens. Guns and ammunition played a large role in the Unions victory.

For the South to be successful in winning independence against the North it had to depend largely on brilliant leadership and the morale of the people. The North has several advantages over the South. The North is well- known for their industrialized economy, exceptional railroad links and dominating the shipping industry. The South’s main source of income comes from agriculture such as cotton and tobacco. The North is significantly higher in population and outnumbers the South, four to one. One advantage the South has is they are defending their land and their way of life. The North is trying to keep the Union together and abolish slavery.

Both the North and the South had advantages that would help them win battles in the Civil War. The North and the South had political, social, economic, and demographic properties that would either assist or weaken their ability to win the war.

Even though the North and South were two very distinctly different opposing forces during the Civil War, there were some things both sides had in common. The Civil War was primarily fought to abolish slavery after Abraham Lincoln was elected president, but there were core differences between the North and South that caused them to fight for or against slavery. Things like climate, social equality, and the economy, were major factors in determining whether a state was part of the Confederacy or the Union. When the Confederate states seceded they kept many traits from the Union, so there were still some similarities such as technology and political systems. Ultimately, the small amount of similarities between the two sides were overpowered by differences, and led to the North’s victory of the Civil War.

North was home to the major advancements in transportation. They had trains to export and import goods. They were also able to use their ports. They had ships to export and import goods which was a major advantage. North also had the majority of the wealth. This would become an advantage during the war. They had the population and the money over the south.

The first difference between the North and the South is the population.The population of the North was about 22 million citizens. This means that there were plenty of people in those states just in case they were to start running out of militiamen. The population of the South was only about 9 million. This meant that if they were to get in a war with the Union they could possibly run out of men. They north nearly had 13 million more people than the North.One reason that the North has suh a bigger population was because the increasin in immagrant. ⅞ out all immigrants that came over to” America”went into the northern states.

Neither the Union or Confederacy armies had the experience of being in battle. Majority of the soldiers were just everyday people; they were volunteers so they did not have much discipline. This showed when the Union took their first shot and attempted to attack at Richmond, which was the Southern capital (“Opening Moves of the Civil War”, 2015). Unfortunately, the North was not victorious at this battle and Lincoln felt the need to find a new leader. George B. McClellan was the next leader in line to become the commander of the Union army. McClellan did his job correctly for a while by managing to get the men back stabilized, and soon it was time for change again. Because of the incompetence of the leadership in the Union army, the South saw this as a weakness. However, this could be a strength of the North. Since Lincoln constantly change the leadership, this could throw off the Confederate armies because they would never know what is next to come. The Union’s moves could not be easily tracked because each leader had different tactics and strategies. Leaders in the Union were either organized, incompetent, or aggressive (Heidler D. & Heidler J., 2015), thus giving the Union one up on the opposing side in some

Both the North and South had their strengths and weaknesses; however, the North had more strengths than the South, despite some of the strengths the South had of fighting in familiar territory and having a strong military

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”1 These words, spoken by Abraham Lincoln, foreshadowed the war that became the bloodiest in all of the United State's history. The Civil War was a brutal conflict between the North and South; brother against brother. With slavery as the root cause, Southern states had seceded from the Union and were fighting for their independence. They became the Confederate States of America (CSA) and were a force to be reckoned with. The Union, however, put up a fierce struggle to preserve the country. If the Civil War was to be a war of attrition, the North had the upper hand because of its large population, industrialization, raw materials, railroad mileage, and navy. But if the war was short lived, the

When we think about the Civil War, we have to wonder what if the South would have prevailed. Where would we be now? There were a lot of factors that went into the defeat of the South. Like any team and like modern teams now it came down to who wanted it more? The North did just about anything to defeat the south. I believe the North was an established country. They adapted and taught each other how to work together. Their colossal size man power was stronger and mixed with all races. "The North's advantages in manpower, resources, and industrial capacity were clearly overwhelming."(Hollitz pg288) The North asserted the freed slaves to join them in their Fight. Whereas the South did not and waited a while before resorted to allowing the black