Why the South Lost the Civil War

Tumani Edwards

Mr. Holmes

A.P. U.S. History

16 December 2015

Why the South Lost the Civil War

One would think that the art of war is easy enough, you find where the enemy is and strike as soon and hard as possible; however, this was not the case for the American Civil War between the north and south and as a result, it tore families apart, killed millions of people, demolished any good feelings either side had to the other. In the end though, the south lost the war as a result of insufficient resources which dilapidated the foundation of their war machine, along with being outnumbered, and morale in both the soldiers and citizens being low, one can see why the south lost and connotes why they even bothered fighting in the first place.

The mere fact that the south clearly did not have enough resources to fuel their army should have been enough cause for them to refuse war and find a more diplomatic solution. However, once again, their stubbornness took hold of them and similar to a groundhog ran “into a Ford pickup on the highway, it’s the groundhog that always loses, no matter how much willpower it has” (Zebrowski). The north had 92% of Iron/Steel production, 75% of the wealth, and 85% of the factories, along with 71% of the population of the U.S... This enabled the north to not only build a massive army that outnumbered southerners heavily, but allowed them to supply them with all they needed and build more than they even needed to push their war efforts most importantly lead to the defeat of the south.

The North’s population also empowered their war machine and enlarged their advantage because unlike the south, the north had enough people to hold all the guns that they made. The northern army had 21 million to the South’s 7 million and any way you position them it comes out to the South’s complete and utter defeat. Although they made a significant amount of weaponry, they simply didn’t have enough men to hold and fire them which collapsed yet another...