Why Did The South Lose The Civil War

1842 Words8 Pages
Why did the South lose the civil war? The American civil war began in 1861 with a victory for the North. Over the four years the war lasted families were divided and over half a millions people died. There are a number of reasons to why the South lost the civil war and why the North won. The South had a much smaller army and navy which was a significant factor to why the North won. The sheer manpower of the North can be seen as the main reason why the North won. The Southern states had a population of 9 million which is miniscule compared to the 22 million people Lincoln had at his disposal. Also a large number of the Southern population were slaves and the Southern leaders were unlikely to arm the slaves the North wanted to free. Slavery was the main reason why the North and South divided and went to war. In the North they did not rely upon slavery economically where the South did through farming. Another factor to why the South lost was because of their lack of industrial capabilities to aid them during war. The North had factories and mills where weapons and supplies could have been built easily whereas the South could not keep up as there industry was very weak. The following essay will discuss these issues in detail plus other factors such as the leaderships on both sides and the aid of foreign support. The leadership of both parties is an important factor to consider why the civil war turned out the way it did. Many historians argue that Abraham Lincoln was a far better leader than his opposite counterpart Jefferson Davis. The Vice president of the Confederate, Alexander Stephens, had described Jefferson as being ‘weak, timid, petulant, peerish and obstinate’[1]. He also blamed Davis for ‘all that went wrong’ [2]during the war. Davis had many problems within his cabinet which can be seen through the number of changes he made in his cabinet. Although
Open Document