Why did the south lose the civil war?

Question

I need details.

Answer 1

Looks like most answer-ers subscribe to the theory that the North's manufacturing capabilities made the war's outcome inevitable. Actually, that has been the essence of the "lost cause" position since the late 1860s.

But, in fact, it is not at all so "pure and simple". (I don't know that it ever is!) At the outbreak of the war the South actually had numerous ADVANTAGES, from having many more trained leaders to fighting a DEFENSIVE battle (vs. the North's having to CONQUER a very large territory). The North was not efficiently organized for war for some time, and the early efforts of the North were often weak -- their blockade leaked like a sieve!

There were also MANY points along the way when things could have broken decisively for the South (as they seemed almost to do on several occasions). In fact, as late as August 1864 it appeared that the North was so bogged down that the Democrats would easily oust Lincoln. That would almost certainly have led to a resolution which recognized the Confederacy (that is, the South would have WON).

So, as much as the North's advantages in manpower and materiel in the later stages of the war may have been NECESSARY to victory, they were not SUFFICIENT. If the North had, like the British in the American Revolution, had decided that the COST was too high to keep paying, all would quickly have changed. . . and it ALMOST did.

For that reason, insofar as the South's loss depended on the North's winning, it was critical that the North have people in position who knew HOW to win, and were willing/committed (had the will, including the POLITICAL will) to doing what it took to FINISH the fight. With Lincoln, the War Department will managed under Secretary of War Stanton, and the right military leaders (esp. Grant, but also Sherman, Sheridan and others) they had the PERSONNEL they needed. Once that was in place and IF Lincoln was kept in office, the North could outlast the Confederacy. (My whole point is that NONE of this was a given.)

To that you can add the failure of the South (narrowly, in fact) to gain major international recognition and assistance to resupply them, break the blockade, etc. (Actually, Britain DID have blockade runners and for a time build ships to help the Confederates. So it wasn't quite that they had NO support.)

One other note -- the Emancipation Proclamation actually played an important role in the South's defeat in SEVERAL ways. In encouraged slaves to flee (then helped them), so depriving the Southern army and infrastructure of an important source of labor. At the same time, as a result of the Proclamation's authorizing it, some 180,000 'colored troops' were organized to fight in the Union armies. And the Proclamation led to very strong support for the UNION among Britain's abolitionist labor class ... to the point that the upper class supporters of the Confederacy did not dare to act.

Answer 2

The north was an industrialized society where as the south was an agricultural society. War goods and weapons could be produced quicker and in more quantity in the north than the south. The beginning of the civil war did not go well for the north. Time allowed the flow of material to change the outcome of the war. Just like WWII the US industrial base was untouched by enemy activity and therefor became the production base to support the war.

Answer 3

It was once each. The South within the starting loved the less complicated navy, specially with calvary, and vastly greater management. However because the clash went on, the North tailored and found out, whilst attrition wore down the Confederates. So the north beat the south militarily, in part with sheer numbers, however furthermore with the help of matching the south in first-class of troops and management. The south misplaced the wrestle for a volume of causes. A loss of a abundant army supposed the Union blockade choked southern trade. Larger business potential intended the north might produce extra models and armaments, and provide them extra really effortlessly than the south might. The so much much less centralized executive of the Confederacy made it extra complex to coordinate, and made desertion less difficult within the south than within the north. The failure of Lee's invasion inside the north was once the South's last exact risk to win worldwide awareness. And whilst Lee was once as soon as equipped to hold on within the east, the western campaigns had been generally a sequence of mess u.s.a.for the south. With the manipulate of the Mississippi in Union arms, the Confederacy was once as soon as lower in part, constructing Sheridan's march via Georgia.

Answer 4

There are a lot of reasons.
One of the biggest reasons is because they lacked a manufacturing base. They didn't have any way to make the items that they would need for a war, such as cannons, ships, and the like. The north put a naval blockade up and prevented any ships from coming into the southern ports in order to make it even harder for them to resupply.

Answer 5

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 captured Atlanta, Georgia, and began his famous March to the Sea, devastating a hundred-mile-wide swath of Georgia. Confederate resistance collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.

The war, the deadliest in American history, caused 620,000 soldier deaths and an undetermined number of civilian casualties, ended slavery in the United States, restored the Union by settling the issues of nullification and secession and strengthened the role of the Federal government. However, issues affected by the war's unresolved social, political, economic and racial tensions continue to shape contemporary American thought.

Answer 6

Because the north had the vast preponderance of the nations industrial power base, and economic resources to sustain a prolonged military effort. Pure and simple.

Wotan

Answer 7

Why? Because the North won!