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The Battle Of The American Civil War

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Looking back with hindsight and the knowledge of warfare of the 21st century it is easy to say that the American Civil War was simply put, a very traditional war. Thinking of modern tactics and a course of numbers and deployment one might come to the conclusion that the Civil War was fought centuries ago; nevertheless, it only occurred 152 years ago. This hard fought national struggle was in fact a very modern war for many simple reasons, including the emergence of a new form of large national government with centralized authority, new state run economies, groundbreaking technologies, the development of rank based on merit rather than birth or relationship status, as well as many others. Edging on the turn of the century and ushering in…show more content…
Bureaucratic systems were brought to light as governments grew and organizations needed running. Turning to capable citizens, bureaucratic positions were filled. As bureaucracy grew, authority became much more national and centralized as compared to the past. Prior to the Civil War, authority was dispersed and regional, and different objectives followed resulting in chaos on some accounts. With such a substantial and immense war taking place, authority needed to be controlled and centralized so all intentions were organized. Changes like these were a step in the movement to a more modern type of war, and they progressed away from the norm of traditional American wars previous to 1861. With the growing numbers of men used, how was this ever so expensive war funded and paid for? In comes the introduction of national taxes, only accompanied by the growth of a nation state on both sides. However, the Confederate states were much more ready to lean to taxing their citizens. It is recorded that many types of taxes were implemented including the graduated income tax, license tax on business, sales tax on buying/selling, and a tax-in-kind (this was a form of tax placed on a good or service where no money was involved). The use of taxing to support a war was nothing new; however, the use of taxes on such a grand scale was never witnessed before. What gave the governments the chance to inflict said constraints on the citizens that
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