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Farming In The Civil War

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The Civil War was the bloodiest war in America to date, the war claimed thousands of lives, and left many families without members.The North and South fought for many reasons, but the most notable was slavery. Farming was one of the many reasons the South was for keeping slaves, with lush soil, lots of farmland, a great climate, interesting physical factors such as small hills here and there, communication potential, political and cultural significance, and much more, made it obvious why the South wanted to keep their slaves.

A factor that affected the Civil War tremendously was population. The North had a plethora of people fighting for the Union, while the South, who had a diminished amount of residents, fought for the Confederates. The …show more content…

Wagons were essential, as they helped carry food, guns, wounded soldiers, soldiers, medical supplies, and mail. “They even carried office supplies and new technology for photography and communication.” Alongside wagons, railroads/trains were another addition to the new forms of transportation frequently used. At the time, they were much quicker than wagons, and President Lincoln had rails installed all across The United States sometime before the …show more content…

“Summer varying from 80 to 110°), greatly modified, however, by the cool and refreshing breezes which almost constantly blow from the west. It is now pretty generally known that Texas is happily free from most of the diseases of other climates.” Although, other sources say Texas had dry winds throughout spring.

A variety of crops were grown while the Civil War was going on, some crops include corn, cotton, potatoes, beans, peas, parsley, beets, and parsnips. Because of parchedness in Texas, it was extremely hard to plant crops, much less grow them. Farmers tried growing wheat, beans, potatoes, corn, parsley, and other plants, but they were very hard to grow and maintain due to Texas’s dry soil. A problem that has pestered Texas even now. One of the most popular crops to grow were beets, as they were able to grow in the barren soil of Texas.

It’s obvious that crops, transportation, population, communication, and climate affected the Civil War. Without wagons it would be much harder to transport items to soldiers in need. The North’ overwhelming amount of soldiers would still lead the South to loss. Maybe if the climate in Texas was more apt for farming, and the soil was better to plant crops in, The South would have been able to hold out longer until their inevitable

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They fought because they pursued slavery, wanted State’s Rights, and for the love of Texas. The main reason they fought is because they wanted slavery. Most people in Texas earned money by farming. Without any technology, the farmers bought hundreds of slaves to work for them.

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Throughout the Civil War, as well as the 1860’s as a whole, it was evident that United States was sparsely growing, in industrial goods, the production of agriculture, and the spread of settlements. At this time, the United State’s population was more than double than its previous period. At this time the United states population was Approximately 31,443,321 million citizens (Joseph C. G. Kennedy, The Eight Census; 1864). In this time period we see most of the United State’s economical growth coming from the Midwest as well as the Northeast. As for the South, they remained rather agricultural, due to the desire of one of the biggest crops to ever support the United States, Cotton.

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They had to take the seeds out of the cotton themselves instead of having a machine to do it for them. This made work slower and made it so they lost money. There was also a huge loss of livestock during the civil war. Two fifths of the South's livestock were killed during the civil war. Livestock was very important in this time especially on plantations.

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The first main cause of the Civil War was economic differences between the Northern and Southern states. During the first few decades of the 19th century, the North had an industrial revolution that brought an economy that relied on laborers. While at the same time, the South continued to rely on slaves for their farming and the production of cotton. The Northerners did not need slaves for their economy, but the Southerners could not make any profit without cotton or slaves. In the 1860’s, the North had twice as many railroads as the South, and the South had a bigger cotton production because of their slave population (Document A).

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This one was without a doubt the most important reason. The South had a huge success with selling cotton and people often owned huge plantations. The people who owned the farms hired slaves to farm and collect the cotton, that way they could make their cash. (Document A.)The North however wanted to abolish, or get rid of slavery. Fearful of losing their businesses, Texans decided to fight.

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In the south, the warm, humid climate and southern, fertile soil allowed colonists to grow sugar cane, rice, as cash crops. The south was able to grow many crops and foods the middle colonies, northern colonies, and even many European countries could not produce. Even though large farming fields were a typical setting in the south, slave plantations quickly dominated the southern economy. “Profit-hungry settlers often planted tobacco to sell before they planted corn to eat” (Kennedy, 61). This quote and the 40 million pounds of tobacco annually exported during the 1630’s exemplified the desire and economic opportunity the south possessed.

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By 1811 cotton had spread across many states including South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. During the territorial expansion there was a huge increase in the number of African American Slaves This occurred in the region spanning from the Atlantic coast to Texas. 75 percent of the south’s slave population consisted of agricultural laborers. Tobacco was an important crop in the 1800’sespecially in states like Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky.

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The Civil War was a monumental bloodshed, which was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States, from 1861 to 1865. The primary cause of the war was the Southern states' desire to preserve the institution of slavery, which did not please the beliefs of the North. At the beginning of the Civil War, twenty-two million people lived in the North and 9 million people, which included four million of whom were slaves, lived in the South. The North, led by President Abraham Lincoln and his trusted generals, had more money, more factories, more horses, more railroads, and more food than the south. These advantages made the United States much more powerful than the Confederate States, which ultimately led to Northern victory.

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After the Civil War many problems arose. For farmers- shipping rates, freight rates, silo prices, and interest rates all skyrocketed. Many businessmen, such as middlemen, would try to take advantage of the farmers needs to mooch more money off of them. All of these issues caused the Farmer’s Alliance to form. The farmers that were participating in the alliance were being directly affected by the rise in rates and prices.

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Railroads served to support the armies by defending soldiers from attacks of enemies. According to John Elwood Clark in the article Railroads in the Civil War states, “Soldiers before the Civil War thought of interior lines in terms of space, or distance, although geography sometimes conferred an additional advantage. The Civil War began to modify the concept, increasingly framing the advantage in terms of time, as railroads and steamboats improved travel speed and freight loads; today’s soldiers call it ‘‘superior lateral communications. ’’(Clark 28) Railroads improved war efforts significantly by conveniencing soldiers

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One of the several factors that helped cause the Civil War was the economy at the time. While the economy wasn’t in bad shape, the North and South were different and had very different views and ideas about their futures. The Northern area couldn 't have huge farms like the South. However, they were very diverse in the items they wanted to produce.

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