today we're looking at Civil War advantages and disadvantages hello welcome to the daily
bellringer please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the questions down in the
description also I'd love to see your answer to question number five in the comments below so
today as we're really beginning looking at the Civil War it's kind of important to look and
see what the advantages were for the north or the Union compared to the south or the Confederacy so
first off the advantages for the Union really at the outset of the Civil War and throughout
the war we're really overwhelming and it's it's kind of amazing to see that the South was even
able to last as long as they work and when you compare these advantages so for one the North
had a much larger population it's estimated at the time of the Civil War that the total population of
the United States was about 31 million people of that 22 million people lived in northern
states compared to only 9 million that lived in southern states and of that 9 million 4 million
were enslaved people and of course southern states are the Confederacy were not about to
allow enslaved people to be armed and fighting the war although it is interesting to see the
contribution that they made to the Confederate cause and I'm actually I'll post an article
below in the comments about the contribution of enslaved people during the Civil War to the
Confederate cause but this much larger population for the north meant that they had a much bigger I
guess you human resource base to draw from to be able to fight in the war secondly and arguably
one of the biggest advantages of the North has was of course their industry as you studied the period
of sectionalism hopefully you've seen that the north and the south developed very differently
with the north having an industrial based economy while the south almost purely was agriculturally
driven and so it's estimated that there were over 100,000 factories in the north at the outset
of the war compared to barely 21,000 factories located in southern states and so this meant the
North could produce large amounts of war materials you know guns ammunition artillery shoes uniforms
in fact it's interesting when you look at Union soldiers and Confederate soldiers during the war
you'll notice that Union soldiers are all wearing a uniform while Confederate soldiers for the most
part were generally just fighting and whatever they had on just simply because they did not have
the materials or the industry to just support their troops next we have transportation by the
time of the Civil War the Union or the North had developed a very extensive railroad network across
the northern states somewhere around 22,000 miles of tracks crisscross to the north compared to only
around 9,000 miles in the south this made it much easier for the north to transport troops and more
materials from one place to another and then for the south to add to their problems of their 9,000
miles many of them were different gauges of track which means you know different width of tracks
depending on what rail line you were on and so that meant you know one train couldn't go all
the way across the south they had to actually you know physically unload things from one train to
another so that added to their to their problems next the North had a very large Navy at the outset
of the war maybe not that big but they go through a huge expansion alright by the end of the war
they they've built over 600 ships making it the largest Navy in the world at the time of the Civil
War and so they use this you know large Navy to blockade southern ports they also use it to launch
several successful attacks along the Mississippi River against Confederate targets meanwhile for
the South though even though they didn't have a very big Navy early no Navy to speak of it all
they made up for it with technology I guess you would say by developing ironclad ships and then
also you know developing the first submarine to successfully carry out an attack during the Civil
War now advantages for the South compared to the north one of the major advantages the Confederacy
had was a wealth of well-trained officers really it's remarkable to see that the Confederacy
even lasted as long as they did compared to the advantages for the north but arguably one of the
biggest reasons they last for as long as they did is because most of the strong military leadership
went with a South Confederate commanders such as robert e lee and Thomas Stonewall Jackson helped
the Confederates to win very unlikely victories during the war while it seemed the north you know
just had one inept commander after no especially early in the war and it took a few years before
Lincoln was able to find some commanders that were capable and were able to lead the Union to victory
also the Confederacy was fighting with I guess you would say a stronger fighting spirit many
many you know southerners considered the Civil War to be the second American Revolution in fact
many of them called the war the War of Northern Aggression and so they felt like you know in their
minds they felt they were fighting to defend their homes and they were fighting to defend
their states rights even though unfortunately the major state right they're fighting for was
to defend the institution of slavery but you have to remember in the 1800's a lot of people
were more committed to their state rather than to their country and so you know you could argue
that Union troops having to march into the South we're not fighting with as much you know fight
as Confederates trying to save their homes that they believed and then also the Confederacy was
fighting a defensive war they had a much easier position the Union had to actually physically
march into the south and force the Confederacy to rejoin the Union and so this made it easier
easier for the Confederates okay so hopefully you learned something there and thanks for watching
you