Victory in the North Us Civil War free essay sample

Both the Union and Confederacy expected a quick victory, each believing it possessed several advantages over the other. In the end, however, the North’s overwhelming superiority in manufacturing and industry proved to be far too great a hurdle to overcome by the South’s agricultural economy. While the consensus seems to be that there was no single contributing factor in the War’s outcome, there are several that should be highlighted, beginning with Lincoln’s leadership role. Lincoln’s chief priority from the beginning of his presidency was to preserve the Union. The way in which he achieved this was through skillful use of executive power provided by the Constitution. In the secession crisis, Lincoln relied on the prerogative element in the executive power to prevent the destruction of the government. His decisive action marked the first steps pointing to the reinauguration of the national authority and reconstruction of the Union in order to augment and perfect the principles of the founding (Belz par. We will write a custom essay sample on Victory in the North: Us Civil War or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 53). Once national authority was established, Lincoln would later use his presidential powers successfully and effectively through the emancipation of slaves; a strategy which would serve the Union well when Lincoln permitted the enlistment of Negros in the army. With the recruitment efforts of abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Henry Highland Garnet in the North, as well as Harriet Tubman, emancipated slaves would help fortify and replenish the Union army, and gave an added dimension to Lincoln’s national agenda, which now became as much about abolishing slavery as it was for preserving the Union. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U. S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy (Archives. gov). Lincolns prime commitment to restoration of the Union, his mobilization of the war effort, his eloquence in communicating the national agenda, and the total triumph achieved at Appomattox, together formed an excellent example of decisive and effective leadership. Several key battles, and the strategies employed by the general’s in each campaign, can be identified as turning points which helped swing the War’s outcome in favor of the Union. The first was at Shiloh, where Grant’s army overcame heavy losses to narrowly win perhaps the bloodiest battle of the War. There were roughly 13,000 Union casualties to the south’s 11,000. After suffering losses at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the Union armies had experienced its lowest morale at any point during the War. But shortly thereafter, simultaneous victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg finally broke the will of the Confederacy and swung the momentum in favor of the North. Author James McPherson notes that â€Å"the will of the northern or southern people was primarily a result of military victory rather than a cause of it (40). Since the result of these battles, particularly the latter two, could have easily moved in a different direction, the War’s outcome was heavily dependent on these events. Ultimately, though, it was the North’s industrial society which helped it achieve a forceful victory over its southern, agrarian counterpart. Th e Northern states had a formidable economy that allowed them to better equip and finance the war effort, enabling Lincoln to carry out strategies that were not easily afforded by Jefferson Davis and his generals. Northern industry and mass-production helped transform warfare in the Civil War into a force in which civilians on the home front, and their production of goods, were as vital to the war effort as the men who carried the guns, making the Union a virtual â€Å"war machine†. The North had a better transportation network which aided in their victory of the war. The excellent and extensive railway system linked the cities and allowed cheap and quick movement of the troops and supplies. Key to the North’s victory in this area was in the management of the supplies and logistics by Union officials such as Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs and military railroad administrators Daniel McCallum and Herman Haupt. According to author James McPherson, these men and other officials â€Å"organized the northern economy and the logistical flow of supplies to Union armies with unprecedented efficiency and abundance in which the Confederacy could not match (139). † The South, on the other hand, committed to a cotton economy and decided to remain with inefficient manual labor slave labor as its path to future growth. It rejected building its own factories, preferring to ship cotton to mills in New England and relying on exports to England. A system such as this would inevitably be unable to compete with the more efficient North in the long term, particularly in the areas of communications, mechanical labor, logistics, and agriculture and food production. Industrialization therefore would prove to be the final nail in the South’s coffin as it were, affecting the outcome of the Civil War and the nation at large permanently.