Civil War Disadvantages

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The American Civil War, also known as the first modern war, occurred between 1961 and 1965; and was fought mainly based on immensely conflicting ideas on slavery, politics, and westward expansion in the U.S. This internal conflict was contended by the Union and the Confederacy. While the Union was based in the North, supported Abraham Lincoln, and was primarily anti-slavery, or its expansion; the Confederacy was composed of states in the South that seceded from the Union due to their economic beliefs, and fear that Lincoln would harm their right to slaves. Despite these contrasting ideals, however, both sides have great advantages and unfortunate disadvantages of which impacted the outcome of the Civil War. The Union had the advantages of a …show more content…
Meanwhile, the Confederacy acquired the advantage “of fighting a defensive war on their own soil, as well as outstanding military leadership”, and disadvantage of an inferior army in terms of size (Zinn, 118). To continue, the greatest advantages of the Union were its superior resources and larger sized army. According to Give Me Liberty by Eric Foner, “by 1865, more than 2 million men had served in the Union army and 900,000 in the Confederate army” (Foner, 540). This demonstrates an obvious upper hand, as an increase in people signifies an increase of power and capability. Moreover, the North had superior resources by outstripping the South “in farm production, factories, naval force, and railroad lines, which were crucial for moving troops and supplies” (Zinn, 118). While the Union had 110,000 factories, the Confederacy had 18,000. While the Union had 1.5 billion dollars of goods produced, the …show more content…
The plan was formulated by Abraham Lincoln and General Winfield Scott who suggested that they form a naval blockade, take control of the Mississippi river, then surrounding Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas to the point of surrender. The North used their advantages of obtaining power over major off-land regions and sizeable army to attempt to surround the three states on land and water. With these advantages they were able to block Southern ports from receiving more war supplies, seize New Orleans, and move up the Mississippi river. However, due to their disadvantage of fighting on unfamiliar land, a city on the river called Vicksburg blocked the Union from going further on the Mississippi River (Zinn, 118). This demonstrates the ways in which all advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the war impacted the battle. Despite having a larger army and more sources of transportation, the Union’s disadvantage caused them to unsuccessfully go through with their plan. The Confederacy’s advantage enables them to stop the

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