Why The North Won The Civil War
"In all history, no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war against a nation of mechanics. . . .You are bound to fail" -Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman to a Southern friend.
The American antebellum South, though steeped in pride and raised in military tradition, was to be no match for the burgeoning superiority of the rapidly developing North in the coming Civil War. The lack of emphasis on manufacturing and commercial interest, stemming from the Southern desire to preserve their traditional agrarian society, surrendered to the North their ability to function independently, much less to wage war. It was neither Northern troops nor generals that won the Civil ...
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for growing food crops which served the dual purpose of providing food for its hungry soldiers and money for its ever-growing industries. The South, on the other hand, devoted most of what arable land it had exclusively to its main cash crop: cotton (Catton, The Coming Fury 38). Raw materials were almost entirely concentrated in Northern mines and refining industries. Railroads and telegraph lines, the veritable lifelines of any army, traced paths all across the Northern countryside but left the South isolated, outdated, developed in the form of economic colonialism. The Confederates were and starving (See Appendices). The final death knell for a modern South all too willing to sell what little raw materials they possessed to Northern Industry for any profit they could get. Little did they know, "King Cotton" could buy them time, but not the war. The South had bartered something that perhaps it had not intended: its independence (Catton, Reflections 143).
The North's ...
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machinery and even the emigration of skilled mechanics. Despite valiant attempts at deterrence, though, many immigrants managed to make their way into the United States with the advanced knowledge of English technology, and they were anxious to acquaint America with the new machines (Furnas 303).
And acquaint the Americans they did: more specifically, New England Americans. It was people like Samuel Slater who can be credited with beginning the revolution of the textile industry in America. A skilled mechanic in England, Slater spent long hours studying the schematics for the spinning jenny until finally he no longer needed them. He emigrated to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, ...
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"Why The North Won The Civil War." Essayworld.com. August 25, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Why-The-North-Won-Civil-War/51339.
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