12 THE CIVIL WAR COMPARISON OF NORTH AND SOUTH At first glance it seemed that the 23 states that remained in the Union after secession were more than a match for the 11 Southern states About 21 million people lived in the North compared with some nine million in the South of whom about four million were slaves In addition the North was the site of more than 100,000 manufacturing plants against 18,000 south of the Potomac River and more than 70 percent of the railroads were in the Union Furthermore the Union had at its command a 30-to-1 superiority in arms pro duction a 2-to-1 edge in available manpower and a greater number of commercial and financial resources The Union also had a functioning government and a small but efficient regular army and navy The Confederacy was not predestined to defeat however The Southern armies had the advantage of fighting on interior lines and their military tradition had been significant in the history of the United States before 1860 Moreover the long Confederate coast line of 3,500 miles 5,600 kilometers seemed to defy blockade and the Confederate president Jefferson Davis hoped to receive decisive foreign aid and inter vention Confederate soldiers were fighting to achieve a separate and independent country based on what they called Southern institutions the chief of which was the institution of slavery So the Southern cause was not a lost one indeed other countries most notably
Jefferson Davis was the president and commander in chief of the Confederacy
THE CIVIL WAR 14 the United States itself in the American Revolution 1775 83 against Great Britain had won independence against equally heavy odds In the beginning both sides tried to raise troops only on a volunteer basis but they soon found it necessary to adopt a military draft The South resorted to con scription in 1862 and the North did the following year Both sides also had great difficulty in equipping their troops It was many months before Northern factories were producing enough goods for the Union armies The South with few industrial resources had to import much of its equipment from Europe running it through the naval blockade imposed by Union vessels THE COMMANDERS IN CHIEF Of the two rival commanders in chief most people in 1861 thought Jefferson Davis to be abler than Abraham Lincoln Davis was a graduate of the U S Military Academy a hero of the Mexican-American War a capa ble secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce and a U S representative and senator from Mississippi Lincoln who had served in the Illinois state legislature and as an undistinguished one-term member of the U S House of Representatives could boast of only a brief
FORCES AND STRATEGIES OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH 15 period of military service in the Black Hawk War in which he saw no action As president and commander in chief of the Confederate forces Davis revealed many fine qualities including dignity firmness determination and honesty but he was flawed by his excessive pride hypersensi tivity to criticism poor political skills and tendency to micromanage He engaged in petty quarrels with gen erals and cabinet members He also suffered from ill health throughout the conflict To a large extent and by his own preference Davis was his own secretary of war although five different men served in that post dur ing the lifetime of the Confederacy Davis himself also filled the position of general in chief of the Confederate armies until he named Robert E Lee to that position in 1865 near the end of the war To the astonishment of many Lincoln grew in stature with time and experience and by 1864 he had become a consummate politician and war director Lincoln matured into a remarkably effective president because of his great intelligence communication skills humil ity sense of purpose sense of humor fundamentally moderate nature and ability to remain focused on the big picture But he had much to learn at first especially in strategic and tactical matters and in his choices of army commanders With an ineffective first secre tary of war Simon Cameron Lincoln involved himself directly in the planning of military movements Edwin M Stanton a well-known lawyer appointed as secre tary of war on January 20 1862 was equally untutored in military affairs but he was fully as active a partici pant as his superior
