Advantages Of The North In The Civil War

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The Civil War was a long and hard-fought war and considered the deadliest war in U.S. history. The war was between the Union and the Confederacy over disagreements between the two sides. With the Union winning in the end, these are the three most significant reasons the Union won and had the biggest advantage in the war are that they had a much larger population, they had a much more optimal economy for war as well as more advanced technology and transportation. The first reason the North won and had the advantage in the war is because of their population size. With the North having 18.5 million people and the South only having 5.5 million people it creates a big disadvantage for the South. This heavily benefits the North because in any war …show more content…

As the North was a much more industrialized area with many factories to make everything needed for war. While on the other hand, the South is a much more agricultural-based economy but the North still had more farmland that could operate without slave labor because they had small farms rather than large plantations. The North also had natural resources such as iron, coal, copper, and gold that were much more abundant there than in the South. A few examples of the comparative advantage of the North’s manufacturing is that the North produced 17 times more cotton and woolen textiles than the South, 30 times more leather goods, 20 times more pig iron, and 32 times more firearms. The North produced 3,200 firearms to every 100 produced in the South. The final reason the Union won the war over the confederacy is they had much more advanced techology and better thansportation. Since railroads became such an important new technology in the war the Union having a massive railroad to transport troops, medical supplies, and food made it a huge advantage compared to the small railroad the confederacy had. The North also had the telegraph, which was another technological advantage over the South. Some ways the Union used this was that military leaders were able to communicate in real time using the telegraph. They had updated information on enemy troop strengths and