What Is The Civil War?

The Civil War has been described as one of the most important occurrences in the life of the United States. It was period in time when the United States was no longer united, but instead was split between the north and south due to the ongoing feud over of the legal standing of slavery nationwide. For four years, many people were subjected to horrific measures, especially the soldiers that participated in combat. Despite the brutality of battle, soldiers experienced a numerous amount of daily hardships that made their stint in the war almost intolerable. Being far away from their homes and loved ones, having access only to inadequate food and shelter, gaining an increased risk for diseases, barely living through harsh winters, enduring

The American Civil War affected Charleston’s agriculture in an enormous way. During the Civil War, as Charleston’s Confederates left the city, and the federal troops entered the city, the Confederates set fire to and blew up many of their own supplies (including cotton, rice and munitions). The Confederates made this drastic choice to prevent the Union, once

A Civil War is a battle between the same citizens in a country. The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the independence for the Confederacy or the survival of the Union. By the time Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1861, in the mist of 34 states, the constant disagreement caused seven Southern slave states to their independence from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, generally known as the South, grew to include eleven states. The states that remained devoted to the US were known as the Union or the North. The number one question that is never completely understood about the Civil War is what caused the war. There were multiple events that led to the groundbreaking, bloody, and political war.

The American Civil War took place from 1861-1865 was an inevitable event in the American history. More than 640,000 people were killed and millions more were injured during this massive war. The civil war was between the northern and the southern states where its most leading cause was slavery. Along with that, economic, political and social ideologies caused the civil war. The northern states, also known as the union, were more successful and antislavery compare to the southern confederates states. The northern states were more populated, had more industries, and believed in the Declaration of Independence statement that “all men are

The first side that gets addressed is the Confederate side. While there are many different reasons that the soldiers fought in this civil war, the one of the main causes was for the use of slavery. Many soldiers had the mindset to fight for “a free white man’s government instead of living under a black republican government” (53). This will to uphold the racial inequality was seen in the way the South fought with passion and hatred against the change of their lives (19). Confederate soldiers were mostly bought into the war, due to the plantation owners sending someone else in their names. Soldiers

Thrall to his wife on November 29, 1862. Thrall was an Assistant Surgeon in the 13th Iowa Infantry and he was originally from the state of Ohio. In the letter, Thrall describes his Thanksgiving dinner at a camp near Grand Junction, Tennessee, consisting of fried ham, onions, soda, crackers, and molasses. He describes buying six loaves of bread for 70 cents. It was the first bread he had eaten in a month and according to his words “ [it] will probably be the last.” The complete shortage of bread described by Thrall indicates that the Union lacked adequate food for their soldiers as the war grew more serious and drained the Union economy. Thrall’s Thanksgiving dinner was very modest by today’s standards, however during the Civil War the dinner was an extremely rare treat due to the quantity and variety of food as compared to an average day’s very measly rations. In the letter, Thrall writes that due to the dinner he gained 15 pounds in one day; during a war where the average soldier barely received enough daily rations to live off of. Thrall in the letter writes “I filled a bed thick with dead leaves and with my blankets.” The lack of proper bedding provided by the Union as indicated by the quote was likely due to a shortage of supplies caused by the war’s strain on the Union’s

In the Civil War, it was hard to get good food. You ate the same thing everyday. It mostly consisted of about twenty-seven ounces of bread and meat. The meat was very salty to

At first the South relied on imported arms and munitions but soon was able to produce its own. It had more trouble with clothing and food throughout the duration of the war.

How did they prepare the food? The Union soldiers and the Confederate soldiers had a fairly same diet, but they also had some foods different because of the area they lived in. Whichever side you are on you had to cook your meals on hot stones or by an exposed fire.

With no navy to mount a defense, the Southern government was forced to control production of cotton and raise taxes, which only furthered the disillusionment of its population (Perman, 224). Poor Southerners in particular began to see the war as benefiting a section of society that did not include them, as they were not slave owners. They were the very people forced to make the most sacrifices for the war and the government's control of their ability to produce led to bread riots (Perman, 219). Moreover, as enlistment numbers in the Confederate army dwindled, the government had no option but to turn to forced conscription and impressments of slaves, which Southerners viewed as the impounding of personal property (Perman, 221). The realities of war created a conflict that Southerners did not foresee when they had created an aloof central government.

Staple foods were hardtack for Union soldiers and cornbread for Confederates. Fresh fruit and vegetables were rare. Soldiers received some meat, but, often, it spoiled or too full of preservatives to eat. It was estimated that 995 of 1000 Union troops eventually contracted chronic diarrhea or dysentery. Disease was particularly uncontrolled in the prisoner-of-war camps, whose conditions were generally worse than the army camps.

A day in a Union soldiers Camp life started at 5 a.m. and ended around 9 p.m. with several drills in between similarly to the Confederates, but unlike the Confederates, the Union was supplied with multiple advantages to create a greater camp life. Although the union did not have that much food the Union soldiers still were supplied with much more food than the Confederate. Also, the union tended to have more desirable clothing and shelter. According to The Civil

An army of soldiers requires an enormous amount of supplies, so one would therefore need to have the means to thereby create those supplies. The North was well industrialized by the time of the Civil War, whereas the South was still highly dependent on slave labor, which hindered their ability to industrialize.4 When it came to producing weapons, uniforms, shoes, preserved food, tools for more effective farming to feed soldiers, the telegraph, and other necessities, the Union was way in the lead. They could not only create these products, but they could produce them in mass amounts in a fraction of the time it originally took to make them.5 The South had a hard time enduring the war because they did not have the factories necessary to produce the quality and mass amount of supplies they needed.

In the south they were poor, but still had factories for building their guns and weapons for the war. The south were really good at shooting their guns and riding horses because they live in rural areas. They also got a fight on their own home ground. Says the north were fighting in an unfamiliar territory they had poor communication

Most men had little to no knowledge about cooking since they usually had their wives do it for them, “The biggest culinary problem during the Civil War, for both the North and the South, was inexperience. Men of this time were accustomed to the women of the house, or female slaves, preparing the food. For a male army soldier, cooking was a completely foreign concept. Thrust into the bleak reality of war, soldiers were forced to adjust to a new way of life—and eating—on the battlefield.” (Avey)