The Civil War

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that one of the key causative events leading to the Civil War is the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the two-year-old Mexican War between Mexico and the United States and that allowed the U.S. to acquire the territory that would become the states of California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of what would become Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The author feels that the North won, not because it had right on its side, but because it had better weapons and a more industrialized economy, which created a more efficient infrastructure, greater wealth, and a much larger population base to draw upon for its military draft. The paper points out that the Civil War was the first war in which soldiers made extensive use of rifled ordinance, shell guns, machine guns, iron-hulled ships, land and water mines, submarines, and air balloon intelligence gathering.

From the Paper:

"The strength of the South was overall higher in the first years of the war, although it was certainly not simply a case of a consistent and unmitigated decline. The relative strengths of the two sides tended to shift with the results of the latest major battle. They also contained purely psychological elements: The South originally benefited from the effects of its actions of seceding " there was a great deal of pride across much of the South that followed secession and that helped to boost spirits across the Confederacy " a fact that was reflected in important strategic gains for the region. The South also revived to some extent in the last months of the war: Even as defeat became more and more likely to occur, Southerners were determined to save what they could of their lives and their history."

More papers on The Civil War:

• Cause and Effect Essay # 72266 : "Causes of the Civil War"
• Essay # 44405 : "The Civil War and Slavery"
• Article Review # 36963 : "Women During the Civil War"
• Narrative Essay # 68995 : "Changes During and After the Civil War"

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