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Balance Sheet of War
Major Questions
• What were the Confederacy’s advantages and disadvantages?
• What were the Union’s advantages and disadvantages?
• Was the outcome of the Civil War inevitable?
The Opposing Sides
• Army
– US begins with a regular army; Confederacy has to begin from scratch
– Advantage USA, but offset:
• Army puny (16,000) and scattered, so there’s no large body ready to go
• US chose to keep the regular army separate, not use it to seed the volunteer army
• Recruits (infantry)
– Made up 80% combat troops (15% cavalry; 5% artillery)
– North 2.5 to 1 advantage; 4 to 1 in white males
– How big the Confederate disadvantage
• Slaves allow higher proportion to serve (50% vs. 75%)
• This offset by the fact that the slaves ran off…then served in the Union army (150,000)
– Advantage: USA
• Navy
– North has U.S. Navy, South has to start from scratch
– Advantage USA, but offset:
• Not a huge navy (90 vessels/42 in commission/3 ready to go)
• Not expert at coastal and inland operations
– So, who in better position to scramble?
– Southerners did contribute technological innovations
• First ironclad (CSS Virginia)
• First combat submarine (Hunley)
• Torpedoes, privateers, and rams
– But Northerners:
• A maritime people, with more naval personnel
• Had money and industry to buy and build
• By end of the war the largest navy in the world
– How important is the navy?
– Advantage: USA
• Cavalry
– Southerners the more experienced riders
– Majority of the cavalry officers in regular army Southerners
– Took longer to train a cavalryman than any other combat soldier
– How important was the cavalry?
• Eyes of the army
• Patrolled the flanks
• Raided supply lines
– Advantage: CSA, especially early; Union cavalry on par by 1863
• Artillery
– Industrial capacity of North far outstripped South
• 15 times the South’s iron production
• 24 times the locomotives; more than twice the track
• 800,000 vs. 300,000 draft animals
– Most artillery officers Northern-born
– Half the Union canon rifled; CSA only 1/3
– Advantage: USA, though offset by Napoleons and Josiah Gorgas
• Guns (shoulder weapons)
– The smoothbore musket; range 80 yards
– The rifled musket
• Claude Minie; improved by James H. Burton; effective range 400 yards
Implications?
Only the Union could supply itself
Only the Union could improve on the design with breech-loading repeaters
Advantage USA, though offset by:
• North didn’t embrace the new technology
• CSA imported rifles early; then captured thousands
Leadership
– Generals
• East: Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, Stuart vs. Pope, Burnside, Hooker, McClellan
• West: Grant, Sherman, Thomas vs. Bragg, Polk
• Advantage, none
– Officers
• North has more West Pointers (754/283)
• North needs more officers
• North leaves regular army intact
• South has VMI and Citadel dumping esp. into ANV
• Unclear if school-learning as imp. as adaptability
• Advantage, none
Leadership (continued)
– Commander-in-chief Davis
• Huge apparent advantage (West Pointer; Mexican War hero; former Sec. of War; sharp
grasp of military strategy; could, and did, function as General-in-Chief
• Minor disadvantages: tried to protect too much territory; relied occasionally on loyalty
rather than effectiveness; could micro-manage
– Commander-in-chief Lincoln
• Huge apparent disadvantage (minor military service, virtually no training)
• But: bright; listened to advisors; grasped the essence early (bleed ANV and apply
pressure everywhere); low on ego, rewarded success; adaptive
Diplomatic options/Foreign Policy
– What could Europe do?
• Recognize the Confederacy
• Extend loans
• Send troops
• Send the Royal Navy to break the blockade
• Example of Revolution at the front of everyone’s mind.
– What would Europe do?
– Advantage, none
War production, supply, and finance
– Food (commissary)
– Uniforms and shoes (quartermaster)
– Finance (paymaster)
• Southern disadvantages
– Money tied up in land, slaves, and cotton
– Could not ship because of blockade
– Printed money, leading to inflation
• Northern advantages
– Assets more liquid
– More people to tax
– More flexibility in centralizing its banking system
– More able to sell abroad
– Advantage: USA
Strategy (a plan), but first….
– What did the Confederacy need to do to win?
• Outlast the North’s willingness to wage war
– What did the Union need to do to win?
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• Occupy, conquer, and hold the South—a huge undertaking given Southern geography
Strategy (a plan)
– Southern strategy
• Establish its independence by:
• Offensive-Defensive strategy: use “home court” advantage; defend “fields and firesides”;
bleed the North; score victories in hopes of diplomatic gains; sap the North’s political
will
Northern strategy
– National or grand strategy changed
• Status quo antebellum (reunion or restoration)
• Forge a new Union (reconstruction)
– Operational or military strategy changed
• Conciliatory “police action”
• Limited war
• Hard war on rebel army
• Hard war on rebel society