Why the North Won

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the North did not win the Civil War because of wily generals and greater manpower, since the South fought just as bravely as the North. The writer argues that, in the end, the South's infrastructure could not support their endeavor. The author points out that, culturally, the largest discrepancy between the North and the South was slavery. In the North, it was outlawed, and in the South, it was deemed a necessity for the labor-intensive crops of cotton and tobacco. The paper relates that there was a finite number of men available to fight in the South, whereas the North had a nearly inexhaustible supply because they would hire immigrants fresh off the boats to fight alongside patriotic Northerners who joined the Cause and because President Lincoln instituted a draft.

From the Paper:

"Throughout the nineteenth century, the North and South developed at different rates. The South was mainly an agrarian society that subsisted on slave labor. There was a great disparity between the wealthy planters and the poor sharecroppers who subsisted on little, but staunchly supported the Southern lifestyle and right to own slaves. This existed throughout the South, from the tobacco plantations of the Upper South to the mainly cotton plantations of the Deep South. These crops were highly profitable, but unfortunately, the South did not evolve as much as the North, and they remained primarily agrarian while the North evolved with the Industrial Revolution, and built factories, mills, and plants by the dozens. Thus, the population shifted to the cities of the North, where the jobs were, and shifted away from many agrarian endeavors."

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