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Unlock This CourseAfter Fort Sumter in April 1861, the country was at war. Seven Southern states had already left the United States to form the Confederacy, and four more joined them after Sumter, making eleven. The states that stayed loyal, the Union, were mostly in the North. At first glance the Union looked far stronger. But the Confederacy had some advantages too.
Key terms:
People: about 22 million, against about 9 million in the Confederacy. Industry: most of the country's factories were in the North, so it could make guns, uniforms and ships. Railways: far more track, so troops and supplies moved faster. Navy: the Union kept almost the whole US fleet. Government: an established one, with money, taxes and a working capital.
Aim: it only had to defend itself and survive. The Union had to invade and win. Land: a huge area, hard to conquer, with soldiers fighting on home ground. Leadership: many of the best US army officers, including Robert E. Lee, chose the South. Cotton: the South hoped Britain and France would need its cotton so much that they would help.
The Confederacy had serious weaknesses. Of its 9 million people, about 3.5 million were enslaved, and it did not arm them. That left fewer men to fight. It had little industry, less railway track and almost no navy, so it had to buy or build ships from scratch. Its government was new and short of money.
The Union's weakness was its task. To win, it had to conquer a huge area and force the South to rejoin. Its war aim in 1861 was simple: to save the Union. Lincoln did not say the war was about ending slavery. That came later. The Confederacy's aim was independence, and as the Confederacy was formed to protect slavery, that issue sat at the heart of the war from the start.
Leadership was a mixed picture. Jefferson Davis had been a soldier and a government minister, while Lincoln had little military experience. Both men had to learn to run a war while it was happening. (The generals are covered in the lesson on Lee, Grant and the turning points of 1863.)
Many Northerners expected a short war. They were wrong. In July 1861 a Union army marched out from Washington towards Richmond. At the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) on 21 July 1861, it was beaten and fled back to Washington. The North now knew that the war would be long and hard.
In the east, the Confederates kept the upper hand for the next year or so. In 1862 Lee's army pushed back a Union attempt to take Richmond in the Seven Days Battles, and the Confederates won again at Fredericksburg in December 1862. These wins boosted Southern confidence and showed that good leadership and home ground could count for more than numbers. Not every early battle went the South's way, though. The Union won in the west in 1862, and the Anaconda Plan's Mississippi aim began to succeed when New Orleans fell.
The Union had one big advantage that the South could not match: ships. In April 1861 Lincoln ordered a blockade of Southern ports. General Winfield Scott suggested a bigger plan: blockade the coast, then take the Mississippi River and cut the Confederacy in two. Critics mocked the plan as slow, and newspapers and cartoonists nicknamed it the Anaconda Plan, after the snake that squeezes its prey. In the end, this squeezing was a big part of how the Union won.
The South depended on selling cotton abroad to earn money and on buying manufactured goods in return. Cut the sea trade and you cut its income, weapons and supplies. But the Confederate coast stretched about 3,500 miles, with many harbours and river mouths, so at first the Union navy could not block it all.
At first the blockade leaked. In the first two years, blockade runners got through with little trouble. But the Union kept adding ships and capturing ports. It took Port Royal in South Carolina in November 1861 and New Orleans, the South's biggest city and port, in April 1862. Wilmington in North Carolina, the last major blockade-running port, fell in February 1865.
The effects built up over time. Cotton exports shrank. Shortages of food, salt, medicines and manufactured goods made life hard, and prices rose. The South could not easily replace the weapons and equipment it lost. The blockade did not win the war alone, but it weakened the Confederacy month by month.
This option is about change over time. Before the war, Southern leaders argued that states had the right to leave the Union to protect slavery, and Northerners said the Union could not be broken. In 1861 that argument turned into a war. Two themes of this option, slavery and the relationship of the states to the whole country, were now being settled by force. What stayed the same was the deep distrust between the two sides. What changed was that argument had been replaced by armies.
Explain TWO ways in which the Southern economy in 1860 was different from the Southern economy under the Union blockade by 1864. [6 marks]
First, the South's trade. In 1860 Southern ports were open and cotton was shipped freely to Britain and elsewhere. By 1864 the Union navy had taken ports such as Port Royal and New Orleans and only a small number of blockade runners could slip through the remaining ports, so exports were far smaller and the South earned much less money.
Second, supplies. Before the war Southerners could buy manufactured goods, salt and medicines from the North and abroad. Under the blockade these became scarce and prices rose, so by 1864 civilians and soldiers faced shortages that they had not known in 1860.
To reach the top level, each way must give specific facts about both 1860 and 1864, as here (open ports against captured ports; goods available against goods scarce).
In a 'similar' or 'different' question, write both sides in every paragraph ('In 1860 ... whereas by 1864 ...'). One way alone can score no more than half the marks.