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Comparison between the union and the confederacy
Comparison between the union and the confederacy
Compare and contrast – union and confederate strategies
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The American Civil War was one of the deadliest wars in American history, resulting in 620,000 casualties of soldiers and undetermined number of civilian casualties. Southern slave states declared their withdrawal from United States and formed the Confederate States of America; also know as “The Confederacy.” Northern twenty states free of slavery and five slave states in north came to knows as the Union. Many strategy and tactics were used during the American Civil War. In order to understand the military strategy and tactics of Union and the Confederacy, one must understand the manpower each side had, previous war experience of the commanding officers on both side, and using rivers and railroad to their advantages.
The Union had twenty states on its side including five that were slave states. That meant that they were able to put up a mass number of Army from each state. When the war came, the North had a total population of twenty-two million people of which 1.3 million were industrial workers. Whereas, the South only had nine million people with 110,000 industrial works. But many Southern counties had a majority of non-white persons, slaves, which were not drafted into the war effort other than looking after agricultural enterprises. Especially in South Carolina, white population was outnumbered by slaves by approximately 100,000. Before start of the war and during the course of war, immigration remained steady in both Union and the Confederacy.
Immigrants were somewhat a part of Civil War as well. Immigrant pattern had remained steady before and during the war. Many different types of immigrants had come to America before and during the Civil War. Of those, Irish and Germans were the biggest migrating group. Over 200,0...
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...son’s idea of fighting a complete defensive war. Creating blockades on coastal lines and controlling railroads were used as well. Even today, similar tactics are used to cut off enemy from supplying their peers. Though Civil War was the deadliest war on American soil, many tactics and strategies are learned from it and improved.
Works Cited
1. Book Titile: The Art of Command in the Civil War. Contributors: Steven E. Woodworth - editor. Publisher: University of Nebraska Press. Place of Publication: Lincoln, NE. Publication Year: 1998
2. Book Title: The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research. Contributors: Robin Higham - editor, Steven E. Woodworth - editor. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1996
3. For the Common Defense. Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994.
The Civil War, beginning in 1861 and ending in 1865, was a notorious event in American history for many influential reasons. Among them was the war 's conclusive role in determining a united or divided American nation, its efforts to successfully abolish the slavery institution and bring victory to the northern states. This Civil War was first inspired by the unsettling differences that divided the northern and southern states over the power that resided in the hands of the national government to constrain slavery from taking place within the territories. There was only one victor in the Civil War. Due to the lack of resources, plethora of weaknesses, and disorganized leadership the Southern States possessed in comparison to the Northern States,
The South seceded in part out of growing awareness of its minority in the nation. The Union held twenty-three states, including four border slave states, while the Confederacy had eleven. Ignoring conflicts of allegiance within various states, which might roughly cancel each other out, the population count was about twenty-two million in the Union to about nine million in the Confederacy, and about four million of the latter were slaves. The Union therefore had an edge of about four to one in potential human resources.
McPherson, James M.; The Atlas of the Civil War. Macmillan: 15 Columbus Circle New York, NY. 1994.
The Confederate state’s strategy for winning the war was to try to weaken the North and to enlist the help of England and France. The South was out numbered in terms of men, ammunition, and supplies. The Union army had 2,100,000 soldiers compared to 1,064,000 Confederate soldiers. Ninety-seven percent of firearm production came from the Northern states, and the North controlled over 70% of the railroad miles. Th...
The Civil War was unlike any other war ever fought in America and had many effects on the home front for both the North and the South. It is stated to be the first ever total war, which is a war against not only the civilians but also the armies. The Civil War is also considered the first modern war fought by the U.S. troops. Lincoln asked volunteers to sign up for only three months. Many people thought the war wouldn’t last long. However, the war continued on for four years. The Union armies had around 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men and the Confederate army had approximately 750,000 to 1,250,000 men. The entire North and South society was affected by the war and desired for many social and economic assets. The Civil war brought new military techniques which caused the armaments to be more destructive. Ironclad ships and railroads were sufficiently used within the war. The north had a motive; they wanted to weaken the South’s longing to victory. The North tried to achieve this last motive by inflicting wholesale destruction upon the South (Janda, 1995). More than a hundred people seemed to be spies or secessionists in Maryland. In time, they were arrested due to not being faithful to the union and their state. Pro-secessionist newspapers were shut down, and telegrams and mail were censored (Perret, 2004).
The North had many advantages at the onset of the Civil War. One advantage that the North had over the South was population size. The North contained more than 60% of the population while the South contained less than 40%. This difference in population plays an important role in the North’s ability to supply troops into military service and continuing the production of industries. If the North did not have a significant amount of the population, their production of war materials could have fallen behind (He...
... yet they strongly believed that they could be victorious. Despite numerous disadvantages, the South entered the war with some important advantages. The South adopted a strategy like that of George Washington in the American Revolution. The plan, known as attrition, called for a strategy of winning the war by avoiding losing. That is, the South did not have to match the North's resources, they only needed to avoid full-scale battles and prolong the war making it too costly for their opponents.
The Union contained approximately 70 percent of the nation’s railroads (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Union and Confederacy Double-Bubble Map). The substantial percentage of railroad tracks was not the only advantage the Union had over the Confederates. They also had trading ships and a large naval force (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Union and Confederacy Double-Bubble Map). However, the Confederacy wasn’t completely unprepared for the war, they had numerous powerful leaders on their side to help protect their land. There were numerous former officers of the United States Army that fought for the South, giving them experienced fighters to help with their strategy, and they also had numerous well-trained soldiers that were excellent at shooting ("Mr. Dowling The Civil War: Strengths and Weaknesses").
Wakelyn, Jon L. Confederates Against the Confederacy: Essays on Leadership and Loyalty. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
The Civil War was the most ruthless and devastating war in American history. After being pushed too far by the Northerner’s anti-slavery antics, the South decided to attempt to peacefully succeed from the Union. However, the North almost automatically disagreed with this attempt, and what was supposed to be a peaceful situation turned out to be the war with the most casualties that has ever been known to happen, the number being over 600,000 lives lost. While it originally seemed that this war would be an easy victory for the North, it’s predicted six months turned into a bloody four years. Nevertheless, the North came out victorious, due to the conditions and the advanced technology that made the North superior to the South.
The Union, however, put up a fierce struggle to preserve the country. If the Civil War was to be a war of attrition, the North had the upper hand because of its large population, industrialization, raw materials, railroad mileage, and navy. But if the war was short lived, the South had the strong advantages of knowledge of the land with a friendly population, superior commanders, an adaptable lifestyle, and a passion for “The Cause”. It took four years (1861-1865) before the Civil War was resolved. The first two years proved to be successful for the CSA, but as the war dragged on and after the battle of Gettysburg, the tide turned in favor of the North.
African Americans also participated actively in the military during the Civil War. After Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, African Americans were officially allowed to enlist in the army. Most of the slaves remained in the south while tens of thousands abandoned southern plantations to join the Union (Doc A). About ten percent of the total Union enlistments on both land and sea were consisted of blacks. African Americans joined and fought willingly (Doc B) and bravely now that they had a cause to fight for—the removing of slavery. More than thirty-eight thousand died in war for the Union, suffering in the Fort Pillow Massacre and serving in units such as the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts regiments and other black military units. Due to prejudice and ideas, the Confederacy did not enlist slaves into the army until the war was nearly over; confederate slaves worked on farms while white men joined the army. The novel idea of African Americans engaged in the war, marching and fighting for the Union, changed many whites’ view and treatment of blacks.
The American Civil War was from 1861 to 1865 it was a civil war between the United States of America and the Southern slave states of the newly-formed Confederate States of America under Jefferson Davis. The Union included all of the free states and the five slaveholding border states and was led by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party. Republicans opposed the expansion of slavery into territories owned by the United States, and their victory in the presidential election of 1860 resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office. The Union rejected secession, regarding it as rebellion. Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a large volunteer army, then four more Southern states declared their secession. In the war's first year, the Union assumed control of the border states and established a naval blockade as both sides massed armies and resources. In 1862, battles such as Shiloh and Antietam caused massive casualties unprecedented in U.S. military history. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal, which complicated the Confederacy's manpower shortages. In the East, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won a series of victories over Union armies, but Lee's reverse at Gettysburg in early July, 1863 proved the turning point. The capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson by Ulysses S. Grant completed Union control of the Mississippi River. Grant fought bloody battles of attrition with Lee in 1864, forcing Lee to defend the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. Union general William Sherman ...
The Battle of Antietam could have been a devastating and fatal blow to the Confederate Army if Gen. McClellan acted decisively, took calculated risks, and veered away from his cautious approach to war. There are many instances leading up to the battle and during the battle in which he lacks the necessary offensive initiative to effectively cripple and ultimately win the war. This paper is intended to articulate the failure of Mission Command by GEN McClellan by pointing out how he failed to understand, visualize, describe and direct the battlefield to his benefit.
The American Civil War, a war between the North and South, Union and Confederacy. During the Civil War, the North and the South fought with their own advantages and disadvantages, though one 's advantage would be mainly the other’s disadvantage. So instead of thinking it as strengths and weakness, there were aspects that were either good or bad for the regions during the war. The main factors between the North and South were their morale, the type of society each had, the location of the war, their leadership, and their population. Each of these topics helped decide the outcome of the war.