Why the South Lost the Civil War

The challenges that the Union and the Confederacy faced during the Civil War were very different. Critical weaknesses that seemed unfit for war, plagued the opposing American forces, and would serve to be a continuous obstacle that would need to be conquered by patriotism of the people, for their opposing views. To allow for both sides to be competitive, the efforts put forth had to mold to the varied needs of the armies by both the civilian population and their militaries. To the people in the south the similarity to the colonists in the Revolutionary War, was assimilated to their separatist cause in the Civil War and would be their drive to compete with the dominating Northern states. This mindset started the Confederacy in the Civil

Despite the lack of economic and political power, the South was also at a loss of collective will. Certainly the course of the war, the military events, had a lot to do with the loss of will. The Southerners hoped that they would win spectacular victories on Northern soil, and that they would be able to exhaust the will of the Northern people, and they failed to do so. The battle of Gettysburg with the largest number of casualties is often described as the war’s turning point. The Union defeated attacks lead by Confederate General Robert E. Lee, ending Lee's invasion of the North. With regard to military turning points, the outcome of the war also became inevitable in November 1864 with the reelection of Lincoln and the utter determination to see the things through, and the finding of leader U.S. Grant, the man to

C., would become enemy territory. If the line between the North and South shifted further north, the Union would lose many people, jobs, and railroad lines. President Lincoln needed Kentucky because it supplied much of the iron, gunpowder, and grain for the South. Slavery still existed in the Border States, which could be used to lure the Confederate States back. Lincoln’s priority was to preserve the Union. Keeping Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and West Virginia may have made it possible.

The Civil War that took place in the United States from 1861 to 1865 could have easily swung either way at several points during the conflict. There is however several reasons that the North would emerge victorious from this bloody war that pit brother against brother. Some of the main contributing factors are superior industrial capabilities, more efficient logistical support, greater naval power, and a largely lopsided population in favor of the Union. Also one of the advantages the Union had was that of an experienced government, an advantage that very well might have been one of the greatest contributing factors to their success. There are many reasons factors that lead to the North's victory, and each of these elements in and

INTRO: In spite of the fact that the Civil War was a period of racist beliefs and segregation, Newton Knight held solid to what he believed was correct. In his eyes, everyone was equal. He stood firm in beliefs for slaves by gathering and leading a huge rebellious group who were gathering to battle for what they all believed was right. It caused a huge conflict along with the already existing one due to the civil war, but it made a huge impact in the end. The arguments lead to the formation of the Free State of Jones where all slaves got to be distinctly equivalent and free, simply like every other person. Many were happy about this, and many were not. But Newton held strong in his opinions of what he thought was morally right. Even though

Historians have argued inconclusively for years over the prime reason for Confederate defeat in the Civil War. The book Why the North Won the Civil War outlines five of the most agreed upon causes of Southern defeat, each written by a highly esteemed American historian. The author of each essay does acknowledge and discuss the views of the other authors. However, each author also goes on to explain their botheration and disagreement with their opposition. The purpose of this essay is to summarize each of the five arguments presented by Richard N. Current, T. Harry Williams, Norman A. Graebner, David Herbert Donald, and David M. Potter. Each author gives his insight on one of the following five reasons:

A frequently, and sometimes hotly, discussed subject; the outcome of the American Civil War has fascinated historians for generations. Some argue that the North's economic advantages proved too much for the South, others that Southern strategy was faulty, offensive when it should have been defensive, and vice-versa. Internal division in the South is often referred to, and complaints made against Davis' somewhat makeshift, inexperienced, government. Doubts are sometimes raised over the commitment of Southerners to a cause many of them were half-hearted about. Many historians have argued that the South lost the will to fight long before defeat was inevitable. However, many of these criticisms could easily be applied to the North, had the

the Confederate army could win this one with a series of charges. On the second

Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman observed to a Southern friend that, "In all history, no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war against a nation of mechanics. . . .You are bound to fail." While Sherman's statement proved to be correct, its flaw is in its assumption of a decided victory for the North and failure to account for the long years of difficult fighting it took the Union to secure victory. Unquestionably, the war was won and lost on the battlefield, but there were many factors that swayed the war effort in favor of the North and impeded the South's ability to stage a successful campaign.

     The South’s dominating strategy in winning the civil war was attrition. They believed they could wear down the political will of the North if they held out long enough to make the Northerners tired and question value of the means to achieve the ends. Military stalemates, guerilla war tactics and inconclusive battles would help the South achieve this goal. “Confederate armies did not have to invade and conquer the North: they needed only to hold out long enough to force the North to the conclusion that the price of conquering the South and annihilating its armies was too high, as Britain had concluded in 1781 and as the United States concluded…” (Why Did the Confederacy Lose?, pg 117)The South really enjoyed McClellan’s performance in the Southern theatre with his tendency to retreat when he could have won. This was another helpful hand the South would need to cause attrition. In response, Lincoln knew he had to do two things to prevent attrition and win the war more quickly. He needed to fire McClellan, and shift the theme of the war in the view of the North so that it would not lose its thunder. He did this by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and converting the war for unionism into the war for morality. The

1. The war in 1862 was only more than a year old and the people in both the Union and Confederate sides didn’t anticipate it would last that long, but it is going to go on. Close to the end of the summer in this same year, the Union has made huge progress in claiming confederate lands, winning some major battles. They have put the confederacy in the defensive. They have taken over New Orleans, with even black troops major on the ground of New Orleans. They have taken Missouri and are working hard to take over the Mississippi Valley and maybe even Richmond itself. Bruce Catton puts it this way in The Civil War, “Except for guerrilla activity, Kentucky and Missouri has been swept clear of armed confederates, Western Tennessee had been reclaimed, there was a Yankee army in Cumberland Gap, another one was approaching chattanooga, and a third was sprawled out from Memphis to Corinth, preparing to splice down through Mississippi and touch hands with the Union occupation forces in Baton Rouge and New Orleans” (85) So not only that they Union had taken over regions, they are advancing as well, but they did not win the way this year for some reason. Firstly, because they did not have generals and army heads capable of taking them to victory. General Halleck, chief of the Union Armies and Pope in charge of one of the Union armies in Virginia, were major examples of this.

With no hope of bringing the South back into the United States by protecting slavery, Lincoln had a new dilemma. His own political party, the Republicans, had formed around their opposition to slavery. Many of the more radical politicians in the party saw the secession of the South as the best opportunity to abolish slavery once and for all. As the US war dead piled up, more and more Northerners began to push Lincoln to punish the states that had seceded by making abolition a major goal of the war. The problem with abolishing slavery, however, was that there were still four slave states that had not seceded from the United States: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Lincoln feared that if he advocated emancipation he would provoke those states into joining the Confederacy, making the war even more difficult to win. Of the border states, Maryland was particularly worrisome, because the US capital at Washington D.C. sat on its border with Virginia. If Maryland decided to join the Confederacy, Washington D.C.

“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

The South was viewed by many in the United States and elsewhere as a robust, self-sufficient economy (Surdam, 2001, p. 1). It produced much of the world's supply of cotton and Texans bragged that their cattle could feed the world. What the South lacked in manufacturing was compensated for by the immense wealth produced from raw cotton, cattle, and corn exports. Obviously, the predictions that the South could survive a war with the North due to its economic self-sufficiency were wrong. This essay analyzes the possible reasons for the failure of the Confederacy to win the Civil War.

Both the Union and the Confederacy had good military leaders who used and/or invented promising war tactics. The North used a strategy known as the Anaconda Plan. This is where the Union Forces would surround the Confederacy, cut its trade, divide it into two at the Mississippi River, and squeeze it to death. At first the Anaconda Plan was ridiculed, because both sides were originally stuck on old fashion tactics of using mass troops to attack a certain point. When both sides found the new technology in weaponry, made this old strategy suicide the Anaconda Plan was implemented. New technology caused old war tactics to change. Another strategy, I personally like to call “The Jaw” was demonstrated by the brilliant Robert. E. Lee from the South. One war tactic used by Ulysses S. Grant from the North in The Siege of Vicksburg changed the way war was fought from then on. It was called Total War. Total War involves not only war against the opponent’s soldiers but war against their civilians and economic system, in hopes of breaking their moral and in hopes that they give up the thought of winning because victory is just not worth the losses, so defeat may be welcomed. The combination of the ancient technique of total war, which