What was key for the Northerners to win the Civil war?

Question

Besides the fact that they had a better military, bigger population, better governemtn, and were more organized. Those were not key to the victory of Northerners.

Answer 1

They were more industrialized than the South, which relied largely on agriculture at that time. The North had superior weapons, more of them, and better technology for transporting supplies. Also, the North had support from the British, who halted trade of cotton and other products with the South, which put them in a bad financial position for being able to afford and obtain weapons.

Answer 2

Industrialization plays a major part, combined with the fact that the blockade, along with a lack of suport from Europe effectivly cut the South off from any help that would have offset Americas mass production programs.

Also, you are looking at a difference in military philosophy. Robert E Lee practiced the type of warfare that would have been familiar to those fighing in the Napoleonic, or Mexican wars. However, the implementation of rifled guns meant that troops were able to aim their weopons properly, rather than just point the musket in the general direction. This gave the north a range and kill advantage.

Although Lee was able to make good strategic moves, tactical and logistical inovations developed in the North basically set the tone.

The longer the war went on, the higher the training and experience of the North, which would ofset the Souths initial advantage. This is demonstrated with cavalry. Initially, the North had a defecit in cavalry, only able to put mounted infantry into the field (Can be trained quite quickly, but could not get a horse to do anything fancy or that it didn't want to do). However, the later period saw the Souths personel advantage erroded. After that, it was a numbers game.

Note: The South initially had the better army, not to mention the cream of the West Point officer corps.

Luck

Answer 3

Industrialization was a factor -- many of the weapons that made us a world power in the 20th c. were invented, or had prototypes invented by the North during the Civil War. Plus, there were simply far more Northerners than there were Southerners. The North had a string of incompetent generals before they finally found Grant and Sherman. The South, on the other hand, had Lee -- one of the greatest military minds in history. However, even with that discrepancy in leadership, there was really no way for the South to win -- even with the string of incompetent generals early on, the North had such a larger population that it could keep throwing able-bodied men into the war machine until the end, whereas towards the end, the South's army was comprised mainly of old men and young boys because the population of eligible soldiers had been decimated.

Answer 4

You can't point to any one thing. The Union had several key advantages related to the part of the country it held (industrialised, larger population) and the fact it was already a country (most of the regular army stayed loyal, they kept the navy, their government mostly worked better than the Confederacy's which was kind of cobbled together).

The Confederacy had other advantages related to the Virginia military tradition (they kept most of the good generals) and their objectives (they were fighting for independence, whereas the Union was fighting to keep states whose governing elites didn't want to stay; the Union had to do the attacking and would be more likely to give up).

The war was a close run thing. Lincoln almost lost the 1864 election to McClelland, and if McClelland had won he would have ended the war and let the south go (at least, that's the platform he ran on). If that happens then the Confederacy can be said to have won, though of course there's never any chance they could have conquered the north.

So you could change almost anything and change the result of the war. That means almost anything you care to name is a key advantage. Well, in some sense.

Answer 5

Militarily, taking control of the Mississippi River and blockading Southern ports (and thus destoying the South's agrarian commerce) was key to ruining the Southern economy. Quite simply the South could not finance a war and could not purchase the armaments and other supplies needed to continue the war. Countries sympathetic to the South's cause were not able to provide sufficient supplies due to the blockades.
Also, General Grant instituted a policy of "living off of the land" which ended the reliance on long and precarious supply lines. He also instituted a "scorched earth" policy by which Northern forces destroyed all Southern material goods and supplies as they moved through Southern territory. (Grant's famed march to the sea). Both of these polices were innovative at that time in military history.

Answer 6

First of all, the North was industrialized. They could mass-produce weapons, armaments, canteens and glass bottles in a way that the non-industrialized South could not.

Secondly, the North had most of the railroads in the United States in 1860, an important means of transporting troops and supplies rather than using just horses and wagons.

Thirdly, the South had few resources. Most of the resources needed to sustain the war like coke, coal, oil, lead, tin, copper, iron ore and steel were all up north. Pennsylvania was a big coal producer.

Finally, the North even had a monopoly on morphine, the major painkiller used in the Civil War. It was manufactured in the laboratory of Dr. Edward R. Squibb in Brooklyn, New York. The South, however, had no major producer of morphine and because of the Union blockade had to either smuggle it in from Europe (very difficult) or steal it from fallen Union soldiers.

Answer 7

The economy was stronger in the North than in the South. Just like the above posters said: the North was able to use industrialization to make what its armies needed.

Also, the South had a farming economy. It's hard to grow crops as armies march through your fields--remember that most of the battles of the Civil War were fought in the South. And it's hard to supply your armies with food when there are no crops.

Answer 8

Better means of transportation due to more railroads, better industrial power to increase the armanents supply; the blockade which was slowly strangling the South ; the inability of the South to win a major battle in the North and with it gained international recognition especially from England , who desperately needed Southern cotton for their textile industry , as an independent nation; a worthless currency .

Answer 9

Industrialization, The South was an agrarian society

Answer 10

General Sheridan and Total Warfare! He broke their will to fight by killing the woman and children. He did so well that after the war he was sent to fight Indians using the same tactics.