The United States Civil War: Why the South Lose - Essay Example

Why the South Lost The United s Civil War The Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars in that it took more lives than any other war in the United States' history. With such confusion, it divided people - brothers against brothers, families against families - fighting in military forces on opposing sides. The North (Union) fought to prevent a threat to the Union while the South (Confederate) fought for independence and a particular institution, slavery. Historians have long debated on the causes as well as why the South lost the war. Progressive historians stressed that the economic gap between the North and the South was the cause of the war. Cultural and social historians felt that it was due to the differences between the civilizations and values. While revisionist historians believed that the issue was slavery.1 Historians do agree that the North wanted to embrace modernity thereby ending slavery while the South efforts were to preserve slavery and its agrarian way of life. With such disagreement and division, there were two presidents, Jefferson Davis, the first president of the Confederate States and Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States; the Union emphasizing strict compliance to the United States Constitution and support for the Union; the Democratic Party was divided into two parties, one representing the North and the other representing the South. Both believing that slavery ought to continue, however, the North thought the federal government had the right to prohibit slavery in territories. Although the Republican Party was anti-slavery, they did not advocate putting an end to slavery but wanted to prevent its expansion into territories that had not yet become states. And the Southern states seceded from the Union and established the Confederate of America when the federal government prohibited the expansion of slavery.2 In the midst of such chaos, why did the South lose the United States Civil War Ned Harrison, a writer in Greensboro, North Carolina, who specializes in military history, thinks the fundamental economic superiority of the North; a basic lack of a military strategy in the way the South fought the war; the Southerners unskilled performance in foreign affairs; the South's lack of a dominating civilian leader; the Confederate Constitution's over-emphasis on individuals' and states' rights and failure to stress the responsibilities of the individual or the state to the federal government and Abraham Lincoln were the reasons why the South lost the Civil war.3 Abraham Lincoln's role as president of the United States during the Civil War was that of a conservative revolutionary. His goal was to conserve the Union as the revolutionary heritage of the founding fathers. Lincoln, a strategist and war leader, was responsible for the Union victory. Lincoln, a superb leadership as president, commander-in-chief and head of the Republican Party, knew and understood the meaning of freedom, the limits of government power and individual liberty in time of crisis and the problems of wartime leadership. Determined, he liberated four million slaves, and overthrew the social and political order of the South.4 James M. McPerson, professor of history at Princeton University, including the Pulitzer Prize-winner of Battle Cry of Freedom, says the Union's extraordinary leadership was the reason why the South lost the Civil War. As the war progressed, Northern military leadership developed a rational strategy for victory which destroyed the Confederate armies and their resource of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation. The Union's military strategies on the battlefield completely demolished the Confederacy's ability to wage war. And the combined strategic leadership at the political level with Lincoln and the military level with Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan resulted in Northern victory. William C. Davis, former editor of Civil War Times Illustrated and author A Government of Our Own: The Making of the Confederacy, says the South lost because industrially, the North surpassed the South. They had a larger and better military which consisted of four million men. The military generals of the North consisted of class acts such as Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, Sheridan, and George Thomas. While South's military was led by only one second rated army commander, Robert E. Lee. Industrially there was never a chance that the South could win the Civil War. In fact, Europe denied military aid to the Confederacy. Neither England nor France had any interests to get involved in a Civil War that would have without doubt done great damage, especially to England's maritime trade.5 Though by 1860, industrialization was well underway, economic historians questioned whether the Civil War with its enormous destruction and disruption on society could have spurred industrialization. Others suggest that the Civil War was the first conflict that was shaped by the Industrial Revolution. For example, weapons such as rifles were mass produced; soldiers were transported to the battlefield by way of rail, and command and control was conducted by telegraph. Military power during the Civil War depended on the mass production of industrialization. The North had nearly all the industrial resources, the nation's financial resources and railroads. And the Civil War appeared to have been extremely profitable for the North because of the government's purchases of military supplies which stimulated manufacturing and agriculture. Production of all products and services such as coal, iron, steel, weapons, shoes, and woolen clothing increased. Farmers expanded their operations by producing more wheat and wool. Factories as well as farms used machinery to keep up with their demands. With inflation high, financially the war was a challenge. Major sources of revenue came from taxes and money borrowed through the sale of war bonds. Even worse, the government had to print more paper money to meet financial needs. The South, finding little need for an industrialized transformation, resisted industrialization, and manufactured almost nothing. Nearly all manufactured goods were imported. However, as the Civil War proceeded, the South transformed from a backward agrarian to an industrial economy. Adapting its needs to the demands of the war, factories were transformed from civilian to wartime production. Financially, the war was a struggle because of the unsuccessful efforts to finance the war through taxation and borrowing. And printing excessive money only made the situation worse in that it led to an enormous increase in inflation. Raimondo Luraghi wrote "Never before in history had anything like this been seen. A backward agriculture country, with only small, truly preindustrial plants, had created a gigantic industry, investing millions of dollars, arming and supplying one of the largest armies in the world".6 Davis does not agree with the Clinton Eaton's theory that the South was defeated because it lost its will to fight. He thinks the South lost the war because the North and the president of the day, Abraham Lincoln, were determined to win. In accord with Davis, historian Robert Krick states that the South lost because of its lack of resources such as military personnel and equipment. The North was more prepared in terms of numbers and resources. The Union consisted of 23 states and a population twice that of the Confederacy in that there were 22 million, four million of whom were in the military. And 186,000 ex-slaves joined after the Emancipation Proclamation.7 Regarding its military shortcoming, the South consisted of 11 states and a population of nine million, which included four millions slaves who were excluded from direct military participation until nearly the end of the war. Gary Gallagher, professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, states that the primary reason for the South losing the Civil War was due to the fact that it did not win enough battles to sustain morale or to discourage the North. Criticizing Robert E. Lee, Gallagher thinks the Confederates did not have more success on the battlefield because Lee had little talent for waging war. Known as a stick in the mud, the major criticism of Lee was not aggressive. Was Robert E. Lee really that incompetent He utilized incorrect strategies in South's efforts to win the war. Employing dispersed defensive was not appropriate due to the South's limited military manpower as Lee risk fragmenting his forces along land and water borders. One of Lee military strategic blunders occurred with the army of Northern Virginia which had been weakened by prior victories. And yet another, occurred under the command of generals such as George McCellan, Joseph Hooker, and John Bell Hood who were not effective leaders. They were responsible for the Confederates being defeated at the bloody Battle of Shiloh. In addition, the Confederates modified version of the dispersed defensive strategy became known as the offensive-defensive strategy which Hood utilized in a battle in Tennessee with disastrous results. Furthermore, Jefferson's micromanaging, selection of inexperience staff and friends to positions of authority and the protection of his power contributed to other failures of the Confederate army. Both Jefferson and Lee were West Point graduates who had studied the Revolutionary War and how General George Washington won battles. Lee should have used his studies to device strategies needed to wage war on the larger, better armed military force of the North which had modern resources, more finances and an ability to prolong a war indefinitely. The few technical and industrial resources available should have been significant in operational planning. However, according to Gallagher, lost battles, Union victories, destruction of the Confederate infrastructure, and the problems of the Confederate economy all brought hardships that resulted in the South losing the Civil War. Richard McMurry, in researching the Confederacy's defeat, discovered that the South lost the Civil War because of bad military commanders such Albert Sidney Johnston, Pierre T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, John C. Pemberton, Joseph E. Johnston, and John Bell Hood, Leonidas Polk, William J. Hardee, and Joseph Wheeler. For instance, Polk and Hardee were known for trying to challenge their commanding general, Bragg. Wheeler was caught off joy riding when he should have been following the orders of his commander. Generals Beauregard and Johnston refused to work with their government. And Hood and Bragg were simply just not competent. With such leaders, the South did not have a fighting chance. Providing contrast as well as controversy, others insist that the South lost the Civil War because it did not really want to win badly enough. Defeat was ultimately due to a loss of the Confederates' collective will and lack of morale. Though Confederates were committed to a Southern nation, there was not a will or means to accomplish it. Maybe the South's defeat was due to the lack a strong central government. The Northerners in their ideal of the Union brought about a togetherness that resulted in a crusade against slavery. Such unity did no exist in the South. Or maybe the South was defeated because Southerners lost faith in the cause and religion. The South was fighting a lose cause with big egos and disunity. And therefore, victory for the South was not practical. Richard Beringer, the author of Why the South Lost the Civil Way, rejects the suggestions that the South was defeated because of excessive state's rights, inadequate political leadership, economic weaknesses, Union's blockades, and military deficiencies in manpower and supplies. The South's nationalism was weak. They lack morale and as the war proceeded there was uncertainty regarding their mission. Nationalism in a sense of togetherness did not exist in the South. Upon seceding from the Union, to protect a profitable asset such as slaves, the South went to war, and as the war continued those slaves in the end joined the battle for their freedom. For the South this much have been an enigma. With this Beringer states, "the Confederacy undermined the fundamental basis of its tentative nationalism and deprived many of its citizens of their motive for continuing the conflict". He says without a claim to itself and a belief that it was in a battle for its own nation, the South simply lack national character.8 With such differences in opinions of historians and authors, the fact is that the South lost the Civil War. And the the impact of the war on the United States' society was distressing. Women played a significant role and the departure of men at the beginning of Civil War destroyed their lives, and burdened them with responsibilities that they were not accustomed. Relocating was an extremely difficult experience for Confederate women and their families. Towns, farms, industry and trade and the lives of the men, women and children were shattered. The Civil War was of great cost to the American people. In the end, 620,000 had been killed. Nearly same the number of men were severely wounded. The North lost a total of 364,000 and the South 258,000. And due to the lack of medical knowledge, disease and infection killed the majority of the total fatalities on the battlefield. Much of the physical landscape destruction occurred in the South where large sections of land lay in ruin. The countryside was littered with the battered plantation houses and barns. Bridges were burned and railroad lines were destroyed. Crops were damaged, livestock were slain and much of the cotton had been removed. And more, there was more than $4 million of destruction, and Confederacy bonds and currency were without much value.9 The South as well as the North embarked upon reconstruction to repair their self imposed wounds. With the assassination of Lincoln, the one person who could have eased the burdens, the adjustments were painful for the North. The Civil War created extreme hostility between the North and the South. Slavery ended, warfare was now modern and the Union was preserved. Politically, culturally, and socially, the South was without a voice. They no longer had any influence in or control over the national government. Though the economy growth declined, industrialization slowed down. Not all the consequences of the Civil War were destructive. In the South farm production, the development of commercial agriculture, and farm mechanization accelerated. And the Union's ideal became that of the United States. REFERENCES 1. "American Civil War". (1993-2005). MSN Encarta Encyclopaedia. Retrieved 28 March 2006, from http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761567354/Civil_War.html. 2. Axelrod, Alan. (1998). "The Idiot's Guide to the Civil War [computer file]". New York, New York: Alpha Books, Retrieved 25 March 2006, from http://www.netlibrary.com/urlapi. aspaction=summary&v=1&bookid=9109. 3. Beringer, Richard E., and Hattaway, Herman, et al. (1986). "Why the South Lost the Civil War". Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press. Pages 59, 425. 4. 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Retrieved 25 March 2006, from http://www.netLibrary.com/urlapi.aspaction=summary&v=1& bookid=14768. 26. "The Consequences of the Civil War". The American Civil War. Retrieved 28 March 2006, from Georgia Institute of Technology http://web.li.gatech.edu/rdrury/700 /write/civ_war/war1.html. 27. Woodworth, Steven E. (1996). "The American Civil War" [electronic resource]: A Handbook of Literature and Research". Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. Retrieve 25 March 2006, from http://www.netLibrary.com/urlapi.aspaction=summary &v=1&bookid=77713. 28. Wright, John D. (2001). "The Language of the Civil War [electronic resource]". Westport, Connecticut: Oryx Press. Retrieved 25 March 2006, from http://www.netLibrary.com/ urlapi.aspaction=summary&v=1&bookid=99243. 29. Wikipedia Contributor. (2006). "American Civil War". Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 27 March 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phptitle=American_ Civil_War&oldid=45662615. 30. Zebrowski, Carl. (1995). "Why the South Lost the Civil War". American History. Volume 30, Issue 4, Page 24. Retrieved 28 March 2006, World History Collection http://library. troy.edu:2051/login.aspxdirect=true&db=wdh&an=9509180150. Read More