Analyze The Causes Of The Civil War Essay

As America grew in the years 1840 to 1870, the growing differences between the North and the South led to the American Civil War. The war began with the secession of the Southern states from the Union, yet even from the start the South had little chance of success. The North’s greater military strength due to it’s population advantage was the largest factor in the North’s favor, and combined with the South’s lack of military discipline due to their democratic values, and the weak economy in the South, the North’s victory was almost guaranteed. In 1861, the year that the Civil War began, the federal census statistics reveal the huge discrepancy in population between the North and South. For every five people in the North, there were only two in the South, even including the vast number of slaves which made up a third of the South’s population. The Union army was far larger than the Confederate army, and not only due to the larger white population in the North. Unlike the Confederates, the Union army recruited many former slaves, and by the end of the war “the Union army included 178,895 colored soldiers-roughly five times the number of men in Lee’s army when he surrendered at Appomattox”(Donald). These former slaves

Had the South possessed an equal military strength to the North, it is quite possible that the South could have prevailed despite the adverse consequences of their democratic values. However, even if the South did have the same values as the North and demonstrated the same military discipline, it is still unlikely that the Confederate army could have ever defeated the Union, simply due to the discrepancy in military strength between the North and the