Civil War Loss For The South example essay topic

"In all history, no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war against a nation of mechanics... You are bound to fail". Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman to a Southern friend. "Why did the North win the Civil War?" is only half of a question by itself, for the other half is "Why did the South lose the Civil War?" To this day historians have tried to put their finger on the exact reason for the South losing the war. Some historians blame the head of the confederacy Jefferson Davis; however others believe that it was the shear numbers of the Union (North). The advantages and disadvantages are abundant on either sides of the argument, but the most dominate arguments on why the South lost the war would be the fact that state's rights prevented unification of the South, Jefferson Davis poor leadership and his failure to work together with his generals, the South failed to gain the recognition of the European nations, North's superior resources made the outcome inevitable, and moral of the South towards the end of the war.

First, the South couldn't have won the civil war because state's rights prevented unification of the South. The very issue that created the Confederacy helped to destroy it. In waging war, the South faced problems of politics and government that greatly complicated its problem of economic mobilization. No one would deny the troublesome effect of the conflict generated by differing ideas of how best to protect liberty and to organize southern society for the war effort. Southern people insisted upon retaining their democratic liberties in wartime, which proved fatal for the South. They had to struggle with a "confederacy formed by politicians [that] could hardly be expected to adopt promptly those centralist's polices which victory demanded" (Donald, p. 26).

Individual state governors fought bitterly with Jefferson Davis to prevent him from consolidating power to fight the war. They withheld troops and supplies while the Confederate Congress spent its time arguing over the rights of the states instead of prosecuting a war of national survival. Many internal conflicts within the South were acquiring and weakening the South's unity. Internal conflicts caused confederate officials to choose between moving troops from the coasts and strengthening their armies, or leaving them where they were and exposing the armies and the states they defended. Such choices caused "competition with state governments for men, and supplies, as citizens pressured their government to place defense above the needs of the entire Confederacy" (Beringer, p. 205). Another internal conflict that plagued the South was opposition to an establishment of a Confederate supreme court because supreme courts could destroy localism according to Senator Louis T. Wig fall.

Even the building of railroads provoked a conflict because "such construction would undermine state authority and that the South did not need them because armies and munitions and military supplies... will be mainly transported by other means" (Beringer, p. 205). A constant "tug of war" was occurring between the central and local governments limited the South greatly and was a factor in its defeat in the Civil War. In addition to the South having conflicts with state governments, Jefferson Davis poor leadership and his failure to work together with his generals caused the South to lose the Civil War. Davis had two popular generals, Robert E. Lee and Judah P. Benjamin. Benjamin was never allowed to bring his ideas of originality to Davis and was often blamed for measures Davis chose not to explain. Lee never was allowed to command over the other officers.

When congress adopted a bill establishing the office of general in chief, intended for Lee, Davis vetoed it. Davis's well-know feuds with two of the Confederacy's premier generals, Beauregard and Joseph Johnston, undoubtedly hurt the South's war effort. Another problem Davis had with his generals was that he couldn't really work with the other confederate leaders because of his failure of communication. He would use "an excessive share of his energy in contentious and even litigious argument to prove he was right" (Donald, p. 103).

Davis wanted to operate as the secretary of war and his own general in chief. He wanted to be a general, not president. He never gave up trying to be a general in the area of strategy and selection of generals to lead his armies. Davis loved to interfere in issues of strategy, giving directions to his generals without ever giving them the means to accomplish his objectives. He made terrible choices for senior commanders, often selecting men based on personal preference rather than qualifications. Davis could never admit his was wrong and "seemed to prefer winning an argument if it would help win the war" (Boritt, p. 37).

The Confederates didn't owe their defeat to numbers, but to faulty strategy and the poor leadership of Davis. It was once said by David Potter, "If the Union and the Confederacy had exchanged presidents with one another, the Confederacy might have won its independence" (Boritt, p. 37) Furthermore, the South couldn't have won the Civil War because the South failed to gain the recognition of the European nations. The South was seeking to gain Europe's support in their cause for the war because of Lincoln's strategy to weaken and destroy the Southern economy by cutting off Southern shipments of cotton to Europe through a successful blockade was working. The South assumed Britain would break the blockade to guarantee the flow of cotton to England because it would bring England to her knees if they didn't. Even limited European power used against the North "could have rendered the Southern cause successful" (Donald, p. 55). However, the South was unable to obtain any help from Europe because "Britain... took immediate steps to protect her commerce.

On May 13, 1861, without awaiting the arrival of Minister Adams, Queen Victoria issued a declaration of neutrality... ". (Donald, p. 60). King Cotton diplomacy was meant to be a dagger pointed at the economic heart of Europe. Instead, it was a knife laid against the South's own throat. By purposely withholding cotton from European markets in the crucial first two years of the war, the South ruined its chances to win European support.

Additionally, historians have agreed that "cotton failed as a diplomatic weapon because Britain enjoyed too much lucrative trade with the North" (Donald, p. 65). The South's failure to receive outside aid to assist them in the war against the North resulted in their loss of the Civil War. Continuing, the North's superior resources made the outcome inevitable causing a Civil War loss for the South. From the onset of war, the Union had obvious advantages. Quite simply, the North had large amounts of just about everything that the South did not have; boasting resources that the Confederacy had even no means of attaining. Sheer manpower ratios were unbelievably one-sided, with North having an "advantage of almost five to two" (Donald, p. 15) not including the slaves or freemen.

The Union also had large amounts of land available for growing food crops which served the dual purpose of providing food for its hungry soldiers and money for its ever-growing industries. The South, on the other hand, devoted most of what arable land it had exclusively to its main cash crop: cotton. Raw materials were almost entirely concentrated in Northern mines and refining industries. Railroads and telegraph lines, the veritable lifelines of any army, traced paths all across the Northern countryside but left the South isolated, outdated, and starving. The North had "three times its [the South] railroad capacity, nine times its industrial production" (Boritt, p. 20). The final straw for the South developed in the form of economic colonialism.

The Confederates were all too willing to sell what little raw materials they possessed to Northern Industry for any profit they could get. With the overwhelming resources the North possessed the North could have fought the war with one hand behind their back. Lastly, the South couldn't have won the Civil War because of very low moral towards the end of the war that had a major affect on South. At the beginning of the Civil War, the South had far superior moral then the North did, but soon after the July 1863 defeat at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the South's moral plummeted and "led many soldiers and civilians to conclude that the war was hopeless" (Gallagher, p. 21). Religion had a role in the Confederate morale drop because "defeat in battle and loss of territory cast doubt on whether God truly favored the confederacy and, for those who concluded that god did not, the cause seemed hopeless" (Beringer, p. 427). Many people wondered why they should fight against God's apparent disfavor, which is ironic because at the beginning of the war the South was using religion as strength.

Then Lincoln changed the entire nature of the conflict by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Without it, the war had no true goal and "it aggravated the misgivings of those who long had harbored quiet doubts about slavery... ". (Beringer, p. 425). By proclaiming that the war was now one for human freedom, the North gained a moral power that prevented European intervention on behalf of the Confederacy and doomed the South's cause. Many Southerners felt guilt over the institution of slavery and withered in the face of the contradiction it created and under the weight of world moral disapproval.

With the moral almost completely gone, the South soon disappeared into a deep sleep and the North won the Civil War. The most dominate arguments on why the South lost the war would be the fact that state's rights prevented unification of the South, Jefferson Davis poor leadership and his failure to work together with his generals, the South failed to gain the recognition of the European nations, North's superior resources made the outcome inevitable, and moral of the South towards the end of the war. The Civil War was a trying time for both the North and the South alike, but the question of its outcome was obvious from the start. The North was guaranteed a decisive victory over the ill-equipped South. Northerners, prepared to endure the deficit of war, were startled to find that they were experiencing an enormous industrial boom even after the first year of war. To the South, however, the war was a draining and debilitating leech, sucking the land dry of any appearance of economical formidability.

The debate continues whether or not the South could have won the Civil war. It's always going to be a bunch of "what ifs?"

Bibliography

Beringer, Richard. et al. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.
Boritt, Gabor S. Why the Confederacy Lost. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992 Donald, David.
et al. Why the North Won the Civil War. London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1960.
Gallagher, Gary. The Confederate War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.