Essay, Research Paper
You Are Bound to Fail. & # 8221 ;
Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman to a Southern friend:
In all history, no state of mere agriculturalists of all time made successful war against a state of mechanics. . . .You are bound to neglect
( Catton, Glory Road 241 )
The American antebellum South, though steeped in pride and raised in military tradition, was to be no lucifer for the burgeoning high quality of the quickly developing North in the coming Civil War. The deficiency of accent on fabrication and commercial involvement, stemming from the Southern desire to continue their traditional agricultural society, surrendered to the North their ability to map independently, much less to pay war. It was neither Northern military personnels nor generals that won the Civil War, instead Northern guns and industry.
From the oncoming of war, the Union had obvious advantages. Quite merely, the North had big sums of merely about everything that the South did non, touting resources that the Confederacy had even no agencies of achieving ( See Appendices, Brinkley et Al. 415 ) . Sheer work force ratios were incredibly nonreversible, with lone nine of the state & # 8217 ; s 31 million dwellers shacking in the seceding provinces ( Angle 7 ) . The Union besides had big sums of land available for turning nutrient harvests which served the double intent of supplying nutrient for its hungry soldiers and money for its ever-growing industries. The South, on the other manus, devoted most of what cultivable land it had entirely to its chief hard currency harvest: cotton ( Catton, The Coming Fury 38 ) . Natural stuffs were about wholly concentrated in Northern mines and refinement industries. Railroads and telegraph lines, the regular line of lifes of any ground forces, traced paths all across the Northern countryside but left the South isolated, outdated, developed in the signifier of economic colonialism. The Confederates were and hungering ( See Appendices ) . The concluding decease knell for a modern South all excessively willing to sell what small natural stuffs they possessed to Northern Industry for any net income they could acquire. Little did they cognize, & # 8220 ; King Cotton & # 8221 ; could purchase them clip, but non the war. The South had bartered something that possibly it had non intended: its independency ( Catton, Reflections 143 ) .
The North & # 8217 ; s ever-growing industry was an of import addendum to its economical laterality of the South. Between the old ages of 1840 and 1860, American industry saw crisp and steady growing. In 1840 the entire value of goods manufactured in the United States stood at $ 483 million, increasing over fourfold by 1860 to merely under $ 2 billion, with the North taking the male monarch & # 8217 ; s ransom ( Brinkley et al. 312 ) . The underlying ground behind this dramatic enlargement can be traced straight to the American Industrial Revolution.
Get downing in the early 1800s, hints of the industrial revolution in England began to shed blood into several facets of the American society. One of the first industries to see speedy development was the fabric industry, but, thanks to the British authorities, this development about ne’er came to go through. Old ages earlier, England & # 8217 ; s James Watt had developed the first successful steam engine. This innovation, coupled with the birth of James Hargreaves & # 8217 ; whirling Jenny, wholly revolutionized the British fabric industry, and finally made it the most profitable in the universe ( & # 8221 ; Industrial Revolution & # 8221 ; ) . The British authorities, penurious with its newfound cognition of machinery, attempted to protect the state & # 8217 ; s fabricating distinction by forestalling the export of textile machinery and even the out-migration of skilled mechanics. Despite valorous efforts at disincentive, though, many immigrants managed to do their manner into the United States with the advanced cognition of English engineering, and they were dying to introduce America with the new machines ( Furnas 303 ) .
And introduce the Americans they did: more specifically, New England Americans. It was people like Samuel Slater who can be credited with get downing the revolution of the fabric industry in America. A skilled mechanic in England, Slater spent long hours analyzing the schematics for the whirling Jenny until eventually he no longer needed them. He emigrated to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and at that place, together with a Quaker merchandiser by the name of Moses Brown, he built a whirling Jenny from memory ( Furnas 303 ) . This meager factory would subsequently go known as the first modern mill in America. It would besides go known as the point at which the North began its economic domination of the Confederacy.
Although slow to accept alteration, The South was non wholly unaffected by the oncoming of the Industrial Revolution. Another discoverer by the name of Eli Whitney set out in 1793 to revolutionise the Southern cotton industry. Whitney was working as a coach for a plantation proprietor in Georgia ( he was besides, ironically, born and raised in New England ) and hence knew the jobs of reaping cotton ( Brinkley et al. 200 ) . Until so, the backbreaking undertaking of dividing the seeds from the cotton before sale had been done chiefly by slave labour and was, accordingly, really inefficient. Whitney developed a machine which would divide the seed from the cotton fleetly and efficaciously, cutting the harvesting clip by more than one half ( & # 8221 ; Industrial Revolution & # 8221 ; ) . This machine, which became known as the cotton gin, had profound consequences on the South, bring forthing the highest uptrend the industry had of all time, and would of all time, see. In that decennary entirely cotton production figures increased by more than 2000 per centum ( Randall and Donald 36 ) . Enormous sums of concern chances opened up, including, possibly most significantly, the enlargement of the Southern plantations. This was facilitated by the fact that a individual worker could now make the same sum of work in a few hours that a group of workers had one time needed a whole twenty-four hours to make ( Brinkley et al. 201 ) . This allowed slaves to pick much more cotton per twenty-four hours and hence led most plantation proprietors to spread out their land base. The pecuniary additions of the hard currency harvest rapidly took precedency over the basic necessity of the nutrient harvest, which could be gotten elsewhere. In 1791 cotton production amounted to merely 4000 bales, but by 1860, production degrees had skyrocketed to merely under five million bales ( Randall and Donald 36 ) . Cotton was now conveying in about $ 200 million a twelvemonth, which constituted about two-thirds of the entire export trade ( Brinkley et al. 329 ) . & # 8220 ; King Cotton & # 8221 ; was born, and it shortly became a cardinal motivation in Southern diplomatic negotiations. However, during this short explosion of economic art, the South failed to recognize that it would ne’er be sustained by & # 8220 ; King Cotton & # 8221 ; entirely. What it needed was the guiding manus of & # 8220 ; Queen Industry. & # 8221 ;
Eli Whitney shortly came to recognize that the South would non readily accept alteration, and decided to take his imaginative head back up to the North, where it could be put to good usage. He found his niche in the little weaponries concern. Previously, during two long old ages of quasi-war with France, Americans had been vexed by the deficiency of celerity with which sufficient armaments could be produced. Whitney came to the deliverance with the innovation of interchangeable parts. His vision of the perfect mill included machines which would bring forth, from a preshaped cast, the assorted constituents needed to construct a standard foot rifle, and workers on an assembly line who would build it ( & # 8221 ; Industrial Revolution & # 8221 ; ) . The North, tidal bore to experiment and willing to seek anything that smacked of economic advancement, decided to prove the Waterss of this ask foring new method of industry. It did non take the resourceful Northerners really long to realize Eli Whitney & # 8217 ; s dream and do mass production a world. The little weaponries industry boomed, and kept on dining. By the oncoming of the Civil War, the Confederate provinces were sorrowfully observing the fact that there were 38 Union weaponries mills capable of bring forthing a sum of 5,000 foot rifles per twenty-four hours, compared with their ain paltry capacity of 100 ( Catton, Glory Road 241 ) .
During the mid-1800s, the Industrial Revolution dug its spurs deep into the side of the Northern provinces. Fortunately, in-migration Numberss were skyrocketing at this clip, and the sudden profuseness of mill places that needed to be filled was non a large job ( See Appendices and Randall and Donald 1-2 ) . The immigrants, who were get awaying anything from the Irish Potato Famine to British subjugation, were willing to work for about anything and withstand cold mill conditions ( Jones ) . Although this development was highly barbarous and unjust to the immigrants, Northern business communities profited vastly from it ( Brinkley et al. 264 )
By the beginning of war in 1860, the Union, from an economical point of view, stood like a towering giant over the dead Southern agricultural society. Of the over 128,000 industrial houses in the state at this clip, the Confederacy held merely 18,026. New England entirely topped the figure with over 19,000, and so did Pennsylvania 21,000 and New York with 23,000 ( Paludan 105 ) . The entire value of goods manufactured in the province of New York entirely was over four tim
Es that of the full Confederacy. The Northern provinces produced 96 per centum of the engines in the state, and, as for pieces, more of them were made in one Connecticut county than in all the Southern mills combined ( ”Civil War, ” Encyclopedia Americana ) .
The Confederacy had made one fatal error: believing that its booming cotton industry entirely would be plenty to prolong itself throughout the war. Southerners saw no demand to venture into the chartless industrial districts when good money could be made with cotton. What they failed to recognize was that the cotton roar had done more for the North than it had done for the South. Southerners could turn huge sums of cotton, but due to the deficiency of Millss, they could make nil with it. Consequently, the cotton was sold to the Northerners who would utilize it in their mills to bring forth wools and linens, which were in bend sold back to the South. This rhythm stimulated industrial growing in the Union and stagnated it in the Confederate provinces ( Catton, Reflections 144 ) . Southern plantation proprietors erred in believing that the turning fabric industries of England and France were extremely dependent on their cotton, and that, in the event of war, those states would come to their deliverance ( & # 8221 ; Civil War, & # 8221 ; World Book ) . They believed that the North would so be forced to assent to the & # 8220 ; perfect & # 8221 ; Southern society. They were incorrect.
During the war old ages, the economical high quality of the Union, which had been so high before the war, was cemented. The Civil War gave an even bigger encouragement to the already turning mills in the North. The military personnels needed weaponries and warm apparels on a changeless footing, and Northern Industry was glad to supply them. By 1862, the Union could tout of its capacity to fabricate about all of its ain war stuffs utilizing its ain resources ( Brinkley et al. 415 ) . The South, on the other manus, was fatally dependent on outside resources for its war demands.
Dixie was non merely dawdling far behind in the mills. It had besides chosen to ignore two other all important countries in which the North had chosen to boom: transit and communicating.
. . . the Railroad, the Locomotive, and the Telegraph- -iron, steam, and lightning-these three mighty mastermind of civilisation. . . will cognize no permanent intermission until the whole huge line of railroad shall completed from the Atlantic to the Pacific. ( Furnas 357 )
During the antebellum old ages, the North American public particularly had shown a great desire for an effectual manner of transit. For a long clip, canals had been used to transport people and goods across big sums of land which were accessible by H2O, but, with continuing growing and enlargement, these canals were going disused and a symbol of defeat to many Northerners. They merely needed a manner to transport cargo and riders across terrains where waterways did non be ( Brinkley et al. 256-59 ) .
The first gleam of hope came as America & # 8217 ; s first crude engine, powered by a perpendicular wood-burning boiler, puffed out of Charleston haling a cannon and gun crew firing salutations ( Catton, Glory Road 237 ) . Ironically plenty, this revolution had begun in the South, but there it would non thrive. The Dragooning industry rapidly blossomed in the North, where it provided a much needed option to canals, but could ne’er rather acquire a bridgehead in the South. Much of this can be accredited to the fact that Northern applied scientists were experienced in the field of ironworking and had no job building huge sums of intricate rail lines, while Southerners, still newcomers in the field, merely hobbled.
This hobbling was rather unmistakable at the eruption of the Civil War. The Union, with its some 22,000 stat mis of path, was able to transport arms, apparels, nutrient, soldiers, and whatever supplies were needed to about any location in the full theatre. Overall, this greatly aided the Northern war attempt and worked to increase the morale of the military personnels. The South, on the other manus, could non tout such logistical art. With its meager production of merely four per centum of the state & # 8221 ; s engines and its light 9,000 stat mis of path, the Confederacy stood in painful consciousness of its lower status ( Randall and Donald 8 ) . Trackage figures entirely, though, do non state the full narrative of the failing of the South & # 8221 ; s railway & # 8221 ; s system. Another obstruction arose in the job of path gage. The gage, or breadth of path, often varied from rail to inveigh in the South. Therefore, goods would frequently hold to be taken off one train and transferred to another before traveling on to their concluding finish. Any perishable goods had to be stored in warehouses if there were any holds, and this was non an uncommon happening. There besides existed a job in the fact that there were big spreads between many important parts of the South, which required providers to do roundabout waies over long distances or to transport goods between tracks by waggon ( Catton, The Coming Fury 434 ) . As the war progressed, the Confederate railway system steadily deteriorated, and, by the terminal of the battle, it had all but collapsed.
Communication, or instead lack thereof, was another hindrance to Southern economical growing. The telegraph had burst into American life in 1844, when Samuel Morse foremost transmitted, from the Supreme Court chamber in the capitol to Alfred Vail in Baltimore, his celebrated words & # 8220 ; What hath God wrought! & # 8221 ; ( Brinkley et al. 314 ) . The coming of this fresh signifier of communicating greatly facilitated the operation of the railway lines in the North. Telegraph lines ran along the paths, linking one station to the following and helping the programming of the trains. Furthermore, the telegraph provided instant communicating between distant metropoliss, binding the state together like ne’er earlier. Yet, ironically, it besides buttressed the turning split between the two diverging societies ( 314 ) . The South, unimpressed by this new modern engineering and non holding the money to experiment, take non to dig really profoundly into its development. Commiseration, they would larn to repent it.
By 1860, the North had laid over 90 per centum of the state & # 8221 ; s some 50,000 stat mis of telegraph wire. Morse & # 8221 ; s telegraph had become an ideal reply to the jobs of long-distance communicating, with its latest victory of land taking form in the signifier of the Pacific telegraph, which ran from New York to San Francisco and used 3,595 stat mis of wire ( Brinkley et al. 315 ) . The North, as with all telegraph lines, embraced its comparatively low cost and easiness of building. The Pacific telegraph brought the agricultural Northwest together with the more hardworking Northeast and the flowering West, organizing an confederation which would turn out to interrupt the dorsum of the ever-weakening South ( 324-25 ) .
The Civil War was a seeking clip for both the Union and the Confederacy likewise, but the inquiry of its result was obvious from the start. The North was guaranteed a decisive triumph over the ill-equipped South. Northerners, prepared to digest the want of war, were startled to happen that they were sing an tremendous industrial roar even after the first twelvemonth of war. Indeed, the lone Northern industry that suffered from the war was the transporting trade ( Catton, Reflections 144 ) . To the South, nevertheless, the war was a draining and enfeebling bloodsucker, sucking the land prohibitionist of any gloss of economical toughness. No fiscal basic was left untasted ; all were capable to diminishment and exhaustion. This agricultural South, with its traditional values and beliefs, decided non to cultivate two harvests which would turn out rather important in the result of the Civil War. Those harvests were industry and advancement, and without them the South was doomed to get the better of. A wise adult male he was, that Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. A wise adult male so.
( Note: appendices taken from Brinkley et Al. 315-17, 415 )
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