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Were the Norths
esources that big
f an advantage
uerilla warfare
ransportation
uperiority
ngenuity
They were certainly overwhelming in quantity and quality and put
the south ad a disadvantage i
that sense but the war was about the North making the South
submit on its land. The north had
occupy the south where the confederates knew the land and had
their supply networks already
established. The souths land mass was huge and required that the
northern troops trudge
thousands of miles, to storm hundresds of fortifications, to
expose themselves ever farther from
Norths better railroads and factories.
Some historians criticize the souths lack of use of irregular
warfare int eh face of such
overwhelming material advantages.
The answer is that they did in fact engage in irregular warfare
very successfully.
- Exploding railroad tunnels- Torching railroad bridges-
Twisting railroad tracks- Ex: Nathan bedfrod forrest and John hunt
morgan threatened to cut off invaders from th
yankee home base, isolate federals from reinforcements, and
subject them to the reveng
an enrages citizenry, wild to redeem the hearth and home from
detested Yankees. (caus
delays as long as months, and forced the number of advancing
forces to split so that som
could stay and occupy the conquered land or risk losing it as
they marched on.
the need to conquer, occupy, and pacify endless Confederate
terrain often offset the unions hu
advantages.
The most complicated manufactured products were the steam
powered ships first and railroa
second, and the North was supremely prepared to manufacture
both.
Having only one of the nations warship production plants, the
south fashioned a sea monster f
a buried corpse. They raised a steam frigate, the U.s.s.
Merrimack, from its watery grave. They
stripped this ex-titan naked above the water level. They slapped
above the hull cap, shaped like
barn roof. They plated the iron, four inches thick. They cuse
concocted the worlds first ironclad
power-driven warship and proudly renamed it the C.S.S.
Virginia.
Victories:
The Congress, the Cumberland and the Minnesota were all victims
of the thing as the
Union navy called it.
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eath of the thing
echnological lag
nions plan of a
aval Victory
The C.S.S. Virginias engine was damaged by its sunken interlude
in pre-ironclad days and cou
not move the iron plated coat any longer so the thng had to be
sunk.
The union copied them and built the U.S.S. Monitor.
The south went on to build a dozen more ironclad engines but
they were just not able to produc
adequate engines for the heavy ironclad vessels.
These vessels were effectively sea fortresses with very limited
mobility but were effective in
holding their ground, in fact these vessels held their ports
until the near end of the war.
Winfield Scott, Lincolns first overall military planner prayed
that the navy could largely win
war. General Scott envisioned a choking watery ring around the
eastern Confederacy. The unio
should conquer all Confederate Ports en the Atlantic and Gulf,
thus blocking European aid.
Federals should also seize dominion over the Mississippi river,
thus severing the Trans-Mississ
states of Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas from the eastern
Confederacy. A surrounded, isolated
eastern Confederacy, Scott hoped, would seek reunion. The
alternative appalled him. If we hav
conquer the seceding states by invading armies, Scott warned a
month before the war, the
Norths waste of human life would be enormous and the destruction
of life and property o
the other side would be frightful.
