The American Civil War, one of the bloodiest wars the United States has ever had to go through. The American Civil War started in 1861 and lasted until 1865. This conflict was a,” separatist conflict between the United States Federal Government (Union) and eleven slave states that declared there secession and formed the Confederate States of America.” We all know that the Union eventually came out on top in 1865 with the surrender of Robert E. Lee, but why did the South lose? (Wiki)
The South seceded from the Union and created the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861 with the sight of a “fire-eater” dominated country. Unfortunately for the South the big plans they had in mind seemed to fail and put them into the loss of the Civil War. One of the big plans the South had was to hold back the huge cotton supply from Great Britain, to force them to inevitably help out the South.
Unfortunately for the South, this plan backfired. The South miscalculated too much for this to work, and I’ll tell you why: For one, the South was only 2/3 of the cotton import Britain had, and when the South refused to sell the cotton, Britain just made it so that the 1/3 of the cotton export became the 3/3 and ruled out the South. Secondly, the South forgot that cotton was one of the major commodities they had to sell, and with the stop of trade on the export, there were no funds coming in to support their war.
The Essay on The South Could Not Win The Civil War
The South could never have won the Civil War," is a true statement, reflecting the various ways in which the Southern states attempted to fight a losing battle from the beginning. The economic dependency of the South on cotton on slavery was obvious, whereas the North had diversified and sufficiently. The advantage also lay with the North for reasons such as better communication and ...
Probably the biggest deciding factor in the Civil war that created the losing scenario for the South was military sizes. The South had many famous Generals on their side, but not enough troops. The Union had already imposed a draft and had even started to let blacks join on the union side. During the Whole war the Union enrolled a nice “2,803,300” soldiers, while the South could only draft “1,064,200” soldiers, that’s more than double! (Wiki)
Another main factor in the loss of the war to the Union would be supplies. The problem for the South was that they only had one branch of a military, and that was strictly land, while the Union had two land and sea, and because of this huge disadvantage the South had no other option than to deal with the coastline blockade and the river blockades, which disrupted there trade routes, and no one was able to get the needed supplies.
In my opinion, the most important reason for the North to win was the South’s lack of will to fight. In Appatomox in 1865, the war had already had 3 long years of pain. Most people don’t realize is that Robert E. Lee was not corned to the one decision to surrender. Robert E. Lee still had readied armies willing to fight for their views’.
All in all, the South had way more disadvantages that advantages: No transport, No income, and No will. These three problems will take down any rebel group, and fortunately for us the South lost.
Bibliography:
Time Line of the Civil War, Richard B. Morris. 2001. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html
The American Civil War. Various. 2006. (Wiki)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Civil_War
