It seems as though just last week we started the Civil War, and now it’s already time to end it. All good things, I suppose…At any rate, I’m sure we’ll be back here before too long.
Today’s question is, depending on your personal biases, either “Why did the South lose the Civil War?” or “Why did the North win the Civil War?” I’ll let you figure out how you want to ask it; I’ll offer some possible answers here.
There are a variety of prevailing theories as to why the… well, why the whoever. Among them:
- The economic argument. The North had more men and more resources than the South. It was simple economic mathematics.
- The lost cause argument. This argument says that the South had a noble, chivalrous cause and culture that was crushed by those superior numbers.
- The leadership argument. This one goes any number of ways. It could be “Grant was a genius” or “Lincoln was a bold leader” or “Lee was weak” or “The Confederacy lacked strong leadership.” Pay your money, pick your preference.
- The military argument. The North adapted to modern warfare; the South didn’t.
- The moral and providential argument. The North was right in their cause, and therefore were blessed/fated/whatever.
- The cultural argument. The Northern culture was, inherently, superior to the Southern, which ultimately meant defeat for the Southern culture.
- The international argument. The War Between the States was skirmish in a larger, worldwide battle, between emerging modernism in the North and a latent neo-feudalism in the South.
- The foreign relations argument. The South lost because it could not effectively rally international support. For example, had England come to the aid of the South, things may have been different.
- The centralization argument. The strong Federalism of the North created a stronger military than the weaker Statism of the South. In other words, “States’ Rights” undid the confederacy.
I’m sure I’m missing one, but those are the ones that come to mind without checking any of my notes.
Also worth mentioning is James McPherson’s argument that the question of “Why” implies too narrow of a view, and that maybe we’re looking at things from the wrong direction. He suggests several “Turning Points” – significant events in the process of the war that, ultimately, determined its outcome. The better question, then, might be “what events led to the South losing the Civil War?” I don’t disagree with this entirely, but I worry that it leads to speculative history.
So, which view is right? I guess if you want to pin me down (and I suppose you do, otherwise why would you be reading this?) I can summarize my interpretation as to why the South lost in a paragraph:
“At the start of the Civil War, the Confederacy was at a disadvantage to the Union on several levels. In addition to superior men and resources, the North was economically modernizing and politically revolutionizing in the same way that England and Europe were modernizing and revolutionizing, giving them an advantage in terms of foreign relations. Both sides believed they were fighting for the right reasons; most soldiers believed they were fighting for their homes and families, rather than an ideological cause. Neither of the two cultures, while at odds with one another, were necessarily superior to the other in terms of fighting a war. As war progressed, Lincoln was more and more able to implement his radicalized policies of Total War and Unconditional Surrender, especially through the work of Grant and Sherman. The South was either unable or unwilling to fight the war in a like manner. By 1865, the South was overwhelmed by the Union forces, its landscape had been burned, raped, and ravaged, and it was unable to garner any international support or sympathy. The Confederacy surrendered, crushed and beaten.”
I know, I know. Sounds a lot like the Lost Cause argument. But read closely; there are important and significant elements from almost all of the arguments there. Am I trying to do too much in that single paragraph? Perhaps. But, I detest easy answers, so I’ll have to live with it.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I think the question is better “Why did the South manage to last so long?”
The north had more arms, more men, better weapons and more international support.
But the south had better Generals. In feudal societies, only the oldest son can get the farm. Otherwise with each generation, the farm gets broken up smaller and smaller. So what does the second and 3rd son do? In our south, they went to West Point and they went into government. Indeed, our Supreme Court was mostly southern and West Point became a ghost town once the war started. Nearly everyone at West Point marched south to join the confederacy when the war started.
Also, Washington DC itself was in a slave state and across the river was another slave state. SC seceded from the Union right after the November election of Lincoln but 4 months before Lincoln became President. During that time, all federal forts in the South fell to the confederates and this included tons or arms. But because of the allegiance of so many Federal officers to the south, tons of materiale was being moved to the south during these months. And President Buchanan did nearly nothing to stop it. Also during this time, the south was making very significant war preparations. The north was making none and much of it’s materiale was moving south.
When Lincoln took over, he pledged a rescue mission to the final federal fort in the south. But before the US ships could reach it, Ft Sumter was attacked and taken and because of that incident, Virginia and the rest of the border states seceded. (That’s when Lincoln asked R.E Lee to take over the Union army. Lee said no, went home and took over the Army of Northern Va.)
Lincoln had to scramble to find leaders, scramble to find troops, scramble to find materiale, and even had to scramble to find a cause. Slavery could not be the cause because no way would America’s northerners die for the Negro. Union became the cause. I think it’s interesting to ponder how Lincoln could have gotten the war machine going if SC had not attacked Ft Sumter. That attack helped him foster that notion of Union. I doubt he would have been successful in even starting a war effort without that attack.
The north had more international support because it was hard for European powers to support the Confederacy because in Europe, it was obvious that the war started over slavery. I think it’s clear that both France and England would have wanted the south to win but they totally lost all chance to enter the conflict once the Emancipation Proclamation was released. Lincoln became a hero in Europe. France had designs on Mexico by then so keeping the North Americans busy could allow them to get away with quite a bit.
Both France and England did what they could to help the Confederacy, but they had to be quite covert or they would piss off their people. And after the Eman Proc, they had to be even more careful.
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I have found on this blog the notion that Lincoln fought a “total war” and that his leadership was particularly ugly in this regard. It seems to me that this was true of both sides in that war. Yes, Shermans march to the sea was gruesome, but was it atypical of others? Or was it simply that this march was more significant BECAUSE it was so large — and thus — so successful. Gettysburg has horrors on both sides and it was one of the few successful attacks on the North by the South. One can only wonder what a Jackson march to NYC might have looked like had it come to that. It never happened so we can never wonder. And Andersonville was another particularly gruesome horror story.
No, I think focusing on northern horror and suggesting that Lincoln fought too gruesome a war is more of that revisionism we keep seeing on the American Civil War. Revisionism that tells us about the inherent nobility of the southern cause and similar bunk. When that cause was in fact about treason and slavery.
I don’t even know how I stopped up here, however I thought this post was good. I don’t realize who you are but definitely you’re going to a well-known blogger if you happen to are not already. Cheers!
Its like you learn my thoughts! You appear to grasp a lot about this, like you wrote the guide in it or something. I think that you could do with a few % to force the message home a bit, however instead of that, this is wonderful blog. A great read. I’ll certainly be back.