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Strengths And Weaknesses Of The North And South During The Civil War

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Samantha Alvarez Gail Trahan English 8 17 March 2017 Strengths and Weaknesses of the North and South Have you ever experienced the hardships of slavery? During the Civil War the North and South had to use their strengths and weaknesses to fight against each other. The Civil War raged on from 1861 until 1865. It was an extremely violent and bloody war that no one expected to last very long. In the end, it lasted four whole years. That’s way more than anyone had expected. It also would benefit the south with a shorter war which just didn’t happen where it wouldn’t have been as good for the north to have a shorter war compared to having a longer war. In order to learn more about the war I continued my research and went on to learn about …show more content…

The North, given their amount of factories, was able to produce a much larger amount of goods, weapons, and other things of need. The South had a very small amount of factories therefore they were not able to produce as much as the North which would be a great disadvantage in a long war. The North’s greatest resource, by far, was its industry which would be an advantage in a short war. The transportation in the north was much more advanced than the South. The North had twice the density of railroads per every square mile compared to the south. The South also had very few railroads and factories, so the transportation was much weaker. They also were not able to transport their goods as easily north could (“Strengths and Weaknesses: North and …show more content…

About 20,000 blacks had also served in the Union’s Navy which also had been open since before the war. The Confederacy had completely objected to this advantage for the north. They threatened to kill and enslave black regiments. But by the end the success of the north using black soldiers led to the south doing the same (Guelzo). Since only about one-tenth of all southerners lived in urban areas therefore since there weren’t many railroads like the north transportation was difficult unless by water. Also during the 1860’s the south was experiencing an agricultural stall, but for the north they were experiencing and agricultural boom (North and South: Different Cultures, Same Country). In the south there was a smaller percent of literate whites than in their northern counterparts. Northern children were also a lot more likely to go to school, where in the south it wasn’t very likely for children to go to school. Being able to read was going to be a great advantage later on in the war (North and South: Different Cultures, Same Country). The south also had great political problems. Since the confederate constitution favored states’ rights and limited the authority of the central government they often had trouble getting many things done (Davidson and

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