Читать книгу American Civil War For Dummies - Keith D. Dickson - Страница 129

Statistics and numbers can be a useful tool, but the insightful interpretation of them actually makes the picture of events crystal clear. See Table 5-1 for the major resources of the Union and the Confederacy (excluding the Border States) in 1861. Without making too much of these statistics, some points need to be made. At first glance, the manpower resources of the North appear dominant. In actuality, the South had a slight strategic advantage. As an industrial society, a significant proportion of the North’s manpower was tied up in the factories. Also, many farmers needed to remain home to produce food, further cutting into the manpower pool. The three and a half million slaves in the South, a predominantly agricultural society, allowed white Southerners to serve in the army in far greater numbers, proportionately, than Northerners.

TABLE 5-1: Distribution of Major War Resources

	North	South
Population
	18.5	5.5 million 3.5 million (slaves)
Agricultural
Corn	396	280 millions of bushels
Wheat	114	31 millions of bushels
Oats	138	20 millions of bushels
Cotton	0	5 million bales
Tobacco	58	199 million pounds
Rice	0	187 million pounds
Animal Resources
Mules	330	800 thousand
Cows	5	2.7 million
Beef Cattle	5.4	7 million
Sheep	14	5 million
Hogs	11.3	15.5 million
Industrial Capacity
Railroad Mileage	20	9 thousand track miles
Number of Factories	100.5	20.6 thousand
Skilled Workers	1.1 million	111 thousand
Financial
Bank Deposits	$189 million	$47 million
Gold/Silver on Hand	$45 million	$27 million

Clearly the Union had all the advantages in the areas of railroad mileage, manufacturing, and finance. Railroads became a strategic asset quickly in this war to gain the advantage over the enemy. For the first time in history, men and equipment in wartime were moved across long distances by rail. Railroads also moved supplies to the armies and raw materials to factories. They became the lifeline of modern war. Do not get the idea that just because the North had more advantages than the South that the war was a predetermined victory. If that were the case, the war would have been over very quickly. Remember, these advantages do not by themselves determine victory. It is how well they are used to support the war’s ultimate goal that makes these resources decisive. The South used its fewer resources more efficiently than the North at first, giving the Confederacy an initial advantage. It took the Union far longer to harness its resources and apply them to the war effort.