The Confederate Revolutions

The American Civil War has become a point of controversy and argument when discussing key events in shaping America. The arguments that arise when discussing the war tend to focus on whether the Confederate was constitutionally justified in seceding, or whether the North had the right to prevent the secession. However, when discussing the America Civil War and the idea of separation, it is important to be mindful that separation did not simply end at the state level. Letters written by Jesse Rolston, Jr. and Jedediah Hotchkiss portray two significantly different attitudes toward the war, despite the fact that the writers both fought for the Confederate States and give accounts of the same battle, one of which ended in the Confederate’s favor. When examining the documents, both writers express different viewpoints on life on and off the battlefield. This significant difference represents a division amongst the Confederate army.

The economies of the North and South were vastly different leading up to the Civil War. Money was equivalent to power in both regions. For the North, the economy was based on industry as they were more modern and self-aware. They realized that industrialization was progress and it could help rid the country of slave labor as it was wrong. The North’s population had a class system but citizens could move within the system, provided they made the money that would allow them to move up in class. The class system was not as rigid as it was in the South. By comparison, the South wanted to hold on to its economic policy. In doing so, the practice of slavery kept the social order firmly in place. The economic factors, social issues and a growing

The south, which was mostly a society built on agriculture, was at a huge disadvantage when it came to railroads. Two-thirds of all the railroads in the nation at the time were in the north. The southern states couldn’t transport anything as easy as the north, and their income mostly relied on the exportation of their crops. Without this source of income, the Confederacy’s economy was crippled. Arguably, railroads were the reason for the South’s eventual defeat.

There were carpet baggers that wanted to feed on the misery and the depression on the south. In the south they had no money. They shut down the railroads in GA, LA, MI, and AL. There was no money for them to run the railroads. They couldn’t run locomotives because they didn’t have anything to haul. It didn’t matter anyway because it was destroyed. The people in the north found that they could make a dollar because of the misery of the south. Most of the trade ships that they had were destroyed by union blockades. The reconstruction took the south a very long time to come back. The renewal of the economy bounced back faster than the rural state did. The port cities was a quicker comeback to the confederate

Economically, the chief and immediate cause of the war was slavery. Southern states, including the 11 states that formed the Confederacy, depended on slavery to support their economy. The North used a factory system for their agriculture, which they hired cheap

The war produced about 1,030,000 casualties, including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease, and 50,000 civilians. The war accounted for roughly as many American deaths as all American deaths in other U.S. wars combined.

The romanticized version of the Civil War creates a picture of the North versus the South with the North imposing on the South. However, after reading “The Making of a Confederate” by William L. Barney, one can see that subdivisions existed before the war was declared. The documents analyzed by Barney primarily focus on the experiences of Walter Lenoir, a southern confederate and a member of the planter elite. His experiences tell a vivid story of a passionate and strongly opinioned participant of the Civil War as well as demonstrate a noticeably different view involving his reasoning when choosing a side. Between analyzing this fantastic piece of literature and other resourceful documents from “Voices of Freedom” by Eric Foner, one

There were several reasons for the defeat of the Confederacy which included no industrial base, (Donald 1996, p. 99) inadequate transportation net (Donald, 1996, p. 99), and bickering among the generals (McPherson & Hogue, 2009, p. 365) etc., but the overriding factor was that the Confederacy never became a nation (Donald, 1996, p. 100). That is, they seceded because the Southern states believed they had the right as independent States to do so (Donald, 1996, p. 7). The South lost because they never stopped believing this. No state could depend on any other for full support of the war. The Governor of Georgia specifically prohibited his troops from fighting outside the state for many months. Many governors set limits on how many

The main economic hurdle the country faced was centered in the south. After the war many Southerners were dependant on federal aid subsistence and the emancipation proclamation cost the South $2 billion of it’s capital (Farmer). Furthermore, agriculture had been what maintained southern economy but post-war most farms and plantations were desolate and many of the few railroad tracks that were there before had been destroyed. Historian Charles Beard looks at the war as, “the triumph of the forces of industrialism over plantation agriculture.” However this is not entirely true. While there was some movement towards industry, the south was still primarily agriculturally based and had adopted a system of sharecropping to do so. It took until 1867 for

The Union blockade did not take full effect for many months, allowing the Southerners time to export their cotton harvest, and reap the financial benefits. Alexander Stephens had a plan at the start of the war that he estimated would net around $800M for the Confederacy, providing a sound financial base for the war effort. Although somewhat optimistic, and affected by practical difficulties, it is fair to say that the cotton crop would have been far better exported than stockpiled or burnt. Secondly, the Confederate government displayed an unwillingness to tax her citizens, preferring instead to print money, and suffer the rampant inflation that resulted. The Union financed its war effort mainly from taxation and bonds, while 60% of Southern funds came from unbacked paper money. The problems associated with this are clear to see: prices rose 100-fold over the four years of war, wiping out southerners' savings, and devastating the economy. The government's reaction to this, the third mistake, was to impress public goods for military use. However, rather than curbing inflation, this merely acted as a disincentive to supply, making essential items increasingly scarce. This, coupled with the poor infrastructure and parochialism of some State governors, meant that the army went hungry in a nation with the capacity to produce plenty of food. Finally, it is argued that the Confederate government should have done more to improve infrastructure and

Before the Civil War started, the North and the South argued on two main topics: slavery and state rights. In my opinion, it was because of slavery that state rights were argued. When Western territories were annexed from Mexico, they were admitted to the Union with the condition that that slavery be banned through the Wilmot Proviso (History.com). Because of this, slave states felt they were unfairly treated and outnumbered. The religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening also gave way to new ideology. Combined with the growing abolitionist sentiment, Northern states began taking action against Southern states. Because their rights as

The Civil War is known as a turning point in America, the road to ending slavery, while first turning a nation against each other.

In the 1800s the Civil War, a war between the northern and southern states, erupted into a massive conflict after President Lincoln was elected and after eleven states seceded from the Union. Following the secession from the Union, The Ft. Sumer conflict erupted, and this four-year tragedy between the northern and southern United States began causing an innumerable amount of casualties. This immense number of casualties, reaching approximately 600,000, resulted from economic and social differences of the North and South, the Dred Scott Case, and the election of President Abraham Lincoln. These causes of the Civil War were all created on conflict rather than intervention. They led to the creation of the Confederacy, a league of confederate states that embodied various disadvantages: the creation of weapons manually, the lack of railroads, the small population, as well as various advantages: tough fighting, devastating the Union 's army and unity that brought people of the Southern states together. Alongside these advantages came devastation, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves, and led to the Confederacy 's defeat in 1865.

The Civil war was the most momentous and crucial period of time in the history of America. Not only did this war bring an end to slavery but also paved way for numerous social and political changes. The country had already been torn by the negative trend in race relations and the numerous cases of slave uprisings were taking their toll on the country 's political and social structure. The country was predominately divided up into 3 sections, the North, the South, and the West. Each of these groups had different fundamental interests. The North wanted economies depending on farming, factories and milltowns, while the West relied on expansion and development of land for farming and new towns. The South mainly relied on agriculture like

Confederate States of America, the name adopted by the federation of 11 slave holding Southern states of the United States that seceded from the Union and were arrayed against the national government during the American Civil War.