Article: The lack of an industrial base hurt the South during the Civil War
The Civil War (1861–1865) was fought between the Northern states of the Union and the Southern states of the Confederacy. It began after the Southern states rebelled and split off from the Union. The war had many causes, but the biggest was the issue of enslaving people. The South wanted to keep people enslaved, while the Northern states had stopped enslaving people years before.
In the years before the war, big changes had been happening in the United States. An industrial revolution had begun that would eventually make the United States into one of the world's leading industrial powers. However, this transformation was almost completely limited to the Northern states. Much of the South was left far behind.
-The North's Economy Centered Around Manufacturing-
In 1860, the South was still mostly agricultural. It depended heavily on the sale of crops like cotton and tobacco. Enslaved people were used to grow and harvest these crops. By 1815, cotton was the most valuable export in the United States, which made some Southerners very wealthy. Yet the South did little to develop beyond an agriculture-based system. It had few factories, little advanced machinery and only about 29 percent of the nation's railroad tracks. The South also had just 13 percent of the nation's banks.
By contrast, the North was industrializing quickly. By 1860, 90 percent of the nation's manufacturing output came from Northern states.
The North also had a significantly larger population than the South did. During the 19th century, fully seven-eighths of foreign immigrants settled in the North. As a result, the population of the states that stayed in the Union was around 23 million, compared to a population of 9 million in the states of the Confederacy. The Union had 3.5 million males of military age — 18 to 45. By comparison, the Confederacy had only 1 million.
The Confederacy's limited industrial capacity and smaller population hurt it greatly during the war. The Union's advantages in factories, railroads and manpower put the Confederacy at a great disadvantage.
-Other Industries Expanded In The North-
In the North, the coming of war increased the pace of its industrialization. Even agriculture became far more productive. The mechanization of farming allowed farmers to produce much more in much less time. By 1860, for example, a threshing machine could thresh 12 times as much grain per hour as could six men. This mechanization became even more important as many farmers left home to fight in the Union military. Those remaining behind could continue to manage the farm through the use of labor-saving machinery.
Northern transportation industries boomed during the conflict as well. This was particularly true of railroads. The North's larger number of tracks and ability to quickly expand rail lines gave it a big advantage over the South. Union forces often rode to battle on trains traveling on freshly lain tracks. By war's end, the Union had built the world's largest railroad system.
Other Northern industries — including weapons manufacturing — also grew and improved as the war progressed. The same was not true in the South, which was never able to overcome its disadvantages.
-The Confederate Army Was Overmatched-
By 1864, the Confederate Army was in bad shape. Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant hammered away at Confederate General Robert E. Lee's increasingly desperate army. Grant took advantage of railroad lines and new, improved steamships to quickly move his soldiers. He had an apparently endless supply of troops and weapons. Grant used these resources to crush Lee's often ill-fed and and undermanned army.
During the Atlanta Campaign, General William T. Sherman's Union troops caused huge damage to Georgia's factories and farms. His soldiers destroyed rail lines and bridges. They captured both the important city of Atlanta and the critical seaport of Savannah. An already weakened Confederacy simply could not take such huge losses and survive.
In the end, the Confederacy simply did not have the ability to develop the kind of industrial productivity required to win a "modern" war. By contrast, the Union was able to speed up the industrialization that had already begun before the war. It thus had a powerful advantage that allowed it to win the war.
Question: Write a short paragraph that explains the central idea of the article. Use at least two details from the article to support your response.
