Analysis of the outcome

Why the Union prevailed (or why the Confederacy was defeated) in the Civil War has been a subject of extensive analysis and debate.

Could the South have won? A significant number of scholars believe that the Union held an insurmountable advantage over the Confederacy in terms of industrial strength, population, and the determination to win. Confederate actions, they argue, could only delay defeat. Southern historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly in Ken Burns's television series on the Civil War: "I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back.... If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War."^[3]

Other historians, however, suggest that the South had a chance to win its independence. As James McPherson has observed, the Confederacy remained on the defensive, which required fewer military resources. The Union, committed to the strategic offensive, faced enormous manpower demands that it often had difficulty meeting. War weariness among Union civilians mounted along with casualties, in the long years before Union advantages proved decisive. Thus, the inevitability of Union victory remains hotly contested among scholars.

The goals were not symmetric. To win independence the South had to convince the North it could not win, but it did not have to invade the North. To restore the Union the North had to conquer vast stretches of territory. In the short run (a matter of months) the two sides were evenly matched. But in the long run (a matter of years) the North had advantages that increasingly came into play, while it prevented the South from gaining diplomatic recognition in Europe.

Both sides had long-term advantages but the Union had more of them. The Union had to control the entire coastline, defeat all the main Confederate armies, seize Richmond, and control most of the population centers. As the occupying force they had to station hundreds of thousands of soldiers to control railroads, supply lines, and major towns and cities. The long-term advantages widely credited by historians to have contributed to the Union's success include:

The more industrialized economy of the North, which aided in the production of arms, munitions and supplies, as well as finances, and transportation. The graph shows the relative advantage of the USA over the CSA at the start of the war. The advantages widened rapidly during the war, as the Northern economy grew, and Confederate territory shrank and its economy weakened.

A party system that enabled the Republicans to mobilize soldiers and support at the grass roots, even when the war became unpopular. The Confederacy deliberately did not use parties.

The Union population was 22 million and the South 9 million in 1861; the disparity grew as the Union controlled more and more southern territory with garrisons, and cut off the trans-Mississippi part of the Confederacy.

Excellent railroad links between Union cities, which allowed for the quick and cheap movement of troops and supplies. Transportation was much slower and more difficult in the South which was unable to augment its much smaller system or repair damage, or even perform routine maintenance.

The Union devoted much more of its resources to medical needs, thereby overcoming the unhealthy disease environment that sickened (and killed) more soldiers than combat did.

The Union at the start controlled over 80% of the shipyards, steamships, river boats, and the Navy. It augmented these by a massive shipbuilding program. This enabled the Union to control the river systems and to blockade the entire southern coastline.

The Union's more established government, particularly a mature executive branch which accumulated even greater power during wartime, may have resulted in less regional infighting and a more streamlined conduct of the war. Failure of Davis to maintain positive and productive relationships with state governors damaged the Confederate president's ability to draw on regional resources.

The Confederacy's tactic of engaging in major battles at the cost of heavy manpower losses, when it could not easily replace its losses.

The Confederacy's failure to fully use its advantages in guerrilla warfare against Union communication and transportation infrastructure ^[4]. However, as Lee warned, such warfare would prove devastating to the South, and (with the exception of Confederate partisans in Missouri) Confederate leaders shrank from it.

Despite the Union's many tactical blunders like the Seven Days Battle, those committed by Confederate generals, such as Lee's miscalculations at the Battle of Gettysburg and Battle of Antietam, were far more serious—if for no other reason than that the Confederates could so little afford the losses.

Lincoln proved more adept than Davis in replacing unsuccessful generals with better ones.

Strategically the location of the capital Richmond tied Lee to a highly exposed position at the end of supply lines. (Loss of Richmond, everyone realized, meant loss of the war.)

Lincoln grew as a grand strategist, in contrast to Davis. The Confederacy never developed an overall strategy. It never had a plan to deal with the blockade. Davis failed to respond in a coordinated fashion to serious threats, such as Grant's campaign against Vicksburg in 1863 (in the face of which, he allowed Lee to invade Pennsylvania).

The Confederacy's failure to win diplomatic or military support from any foreign powers. Its King Cotton misperception of the world economy led to bad diplomacy, such as the refusal to ship cotton before the blockade started.

The Confederacy may have lacked the total commitment needed to win the war ^[5]. It took time, however, for leaders such as Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan to emerge; in the meantime, Union public opinion wavered, and Lincoln worried about losing the election of 1864, until victories in the Shenandoah Valley and Atlanta made victory seem likely.

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