for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter" (Brinkley 414). President Abraham Lincoln spoke these words to a former slave that kneeled before him while walking the streets of the abandoned Confederate capitol of Richmond in 1865. Although there are several different questions of why the North won the Civil War, factors involving manpower, economy, military tactics and leadership, and presidential leadership, are all parts of a puzzle historians have tried to put together for years. I believe that these four factors should prove to be the most powerful reasons for the Union's destruction of the Confederate States of America. The presidential leadership of Lincoln will be revealed as the major influence over the other three factors. According to Robert Krick, an interviewee of Carl Zebrowski's article "Why the South Lost the Civil War," "the basic problem was numbers. Give Abraham Lincoln seven million men and give Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee twenty-one million, cognitive dissonance doesn't matter, European recognition doesn't matter, the Emancipation Proclamation and its ripple effect don't matter. Twenty-one to seven is a very different thing then seven t
According to Richard N. Current author of "God and the Strongest Battalions," "in cotton, the South had a cash crop of great value, and yet, in the midst of war, Southerners reduced their planting, burned the bales they had on hand, and discouraged shipments abroad" (Current 24-25). Furthermore, drafting of Southern slaves robbed cotton farms and industries of male work. In opposition to burning the cotton, the Vice- President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens, proposed to gain profit by selling cotton in Europe, but by the time the idea had actually fallen into place the Northern blockade had already become too tight. Currrent explains that "Not until the third year of the war, however, did the government take complete control of cotton exports and push them with determination. If this program had been taken earlier, probably Confederate finances could have been made much stronger then they became" (Current 27). Fortunately for the North it was much too late for this experiment to show any signs of its success.
Another advantage the Union had over the Confederates was its navy. President Lincoln knew that in order to hurt the South's economy he should somehow stop their means of transportation. On the Southern coast, the Union's navy created a blockade of ships at each of its ports in order to stop ships of any kind (merchant or military) from leaving. Since small ships somehow managed to get through, the Union's navy soon began to seize Confederate ports destroying any chances of escape for the South (Brinkley 397).
When looking at economic factors in the Civil War, we find that the war had a devastating effect on the South and a converse effect on the North. Because of the Northern blockade and the disconnection of Southern farmers from markets in the North, sales of cotton became nearly impossible. In the North, the war produced the same suffering as in the South, but "it also produced prosperity and economic growth by giving a major stimulus to both industry and agriculture," says Brinkley (Brinkley 384). Since all Southern products were out of reach for Northern Americans, the North enacted a completely nationalistic program to promote economic development.
Betw
Some common words found in the essay are:
Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, South North, President Lincoln, Alexander Stephens, Strongest Battalions, Confederate America, North Northern, According Current, Democracy Englishman, civil war, paper money, abraham lincoln, doesn't matter, presidential leadership, confederate america, south lost civil, south lost, lost civil, economy military, advantage south, lost civil war, north simply upper, simply upper hand,
Approximate Word count = 1484
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
