The Civil War - Advantages of the Union

The Civil War began in 1861, shortly after Abraham Lincoln won the president election of 1860. Southern states such as South Caroline, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi felt that their only option was to secede after Lincoln’s victory. They felt that Abraham Lincoln would unfairly take away their god-given rights to own property, which to them include slavery. In order to prevent the United States from becoming a fragmented nation, Lincoln was forced to take action to ensure the unity of the nation thus leading to the Civil War. The Civil War was fought between the Union, which included Northern states and several Border States that allowed slavery, and the Confederacy, which included South Carolina and other states that had seceded along with it. The North had many advantages in the Civil War including population size, industry, strong central leadership, and the support of European powers while the South’s only real advantages were military leadership and the battles being fought in the South. Therefore, the North’s overwhelming advantages compared to the South’s, made a Northern victory the inevitable conclusion of the Civil War.

First, the North enjoyed higher population rates and greater industry than the South. At the start of the Civil War, the Union was double the population size of the South. This meant that there were more people to pull from in the draft and thus the Union’s army was much larger than the Confederacy’s. Also, in the Northern states of the Union, an industrial revolution was occurring. The industry of the North was able to continue throughout the war became of how mechanized the processes had become. This led to the North having larger supplies of guns, clothing, and food.

Next, the Union had strong political leadership in Lincoln and its government had been in place for almost 200 years while the Confederacy’s government was just beginning. The Union states was led by President Abraham Lincoln, whose sheer

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