After fighting broke out in 1861 the country had a rail network totaling more than 30,000 miles. Of this, 21,300 miles (along with 45,000 miles of telegraph wire), or about 70%, was concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest while the Confederacy enjoyed only 9,022 miles (and 5,000 miles of telegraph wire).
Q. How many railroads did the South have during the Civil War?
Few of the 100 railroads that existed in the South prior to 1861 were more than 100 miles in length. The South had always been less enthusiastic about the railroad industry than the North; its citizens preferred an agrarian living and left the mechanical jobs to men from the Northern states.
Q. How did destruction of Southern railroad tracks affect the civil war?
Destroying the Confederacy’s railroads took away another advantage the South had over the North – land mass. By shrinking the vast space the Confederate Army could operate within, the Union was able to contain the Confederate army to a much smaller, and much more vulnerable, piece of land.
Q. How did the civil war destroy the South?
Much of the Southern United States was destroyed during the Civil war. Farms and plantations were burned down and their crops destroyed. Also, many people had Confederate money which was now worthless and the local governments were in disarray. The South needed to be rebuilt.
Q. Why was the South poor after the Civil War?
Rural agrarian poverty After the Civil War, sharecropping and tenant farming took the place of slavery and the plantation system in the South.
Q. What problems did the south face after the Civil War?
The most difficult task confronting many Southerners during Reconstruction was devising a new system of labor to replace the shattered world of slavery. The economic lives of planters, former slaves, and nonslaveholding whites, were transformed after the Civil War.
Q. What were two advantages the South had during the war?
The South’s greatest strength lay in the fact that it was fighting on the defensive in its own territory. Familiar with the landscape, Southerners could harass Northern invaders. The military and political objectives of the Union were much more difficult to accomplish.
Q. What big advantage did the North have over the South?
The North had geographic advantages, too. It had more farms than the South to provide food for troops. Its land contained most of the country’s iron, coal, copper, and gold. The North controlled the seas, and its 21,000 miles of railroad track allowed troops and supplies to be transported wherever they were needed.
Q. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Confederacy?
Another strength for the Confederacy was that they had former officers in the U.S. Army with military experience. Some Confederate weaknesses were that they had few factories making it difficult to produce weapons. They also did not have many railroads making it harder to travel and transport troops and supplies.
Q. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the South during the Civil War?
Mr. Dowling The Civil War: Strengths and Weaknesses
| Union | Confederacy | |
|---|---|---|
| Weaknesses | Had to conquer a large area Invading unfamiliar land | Few factories to produce weapons Few railroads to move troops/supplies Few supplies Small population (9 million) More than 1/3 of the population was enslaved Poor navy |
Q. Why did the South think they could win the war?
The South believed that it could win the war because it had its own advantages. Perhaps the two most important were its fighting spirit and its foreign relations. The South felt that its men were better suited to fighting than Northerners. This made the South feel its men would simply fight better than the Northerners.
Q. Why was the South at a disadvantage in the Civil War?
Southerners were at a disadvantage because it was harder for them to industrialize due to them being highly dependent on agriculture and slavery. Also, northern states had more factories to produce a mass amount of weapons, whereas the South had fewer factories, which caused them to have fewer weapons than the North.
Q. Who was the most successful Confederate general Why?
Lee
Q. Who was the youngest Confederate general?
William P. Roberts
Q. Who is the youngest general in the US Army?
Galusha Pennypacker
Q. Who was the youngest 4 star general?
Alfred Maximilian Gruenther
Q. Who is considered the best Civil War general?
There was no requirement of a balanced list, it just shook out that way, but we’ll see if our commentariat agrees.
- 1 Robert E Lee (Confederacy)
- 2 Ulysses S Grant (Union)
- 3 William T Sherman (Union)
- 4 Stonewall Jackson (Confederacy)
- 5 Philip Sheridan (Union)
- 6 Nathan Bedford Forrest (Confederacy)
Q. Who is the most famous army general?
George Washington
Q. Who was a better general Lee or Grant?
Grant was a rough and tumble tanner from Ohio. Robert E. Lee was a patriarchic southern aristocrat. Lee is considered the better commander. He scored huge victories up until Gettysburg in 1863, while fighting against bigger and better supplied troops.
Q. Did Grant ever face Lee?
On June 12, Grant ordered his army to cross the James River. The Overland Campaign was over. The siege of Petersburg had begun. Grant had not defeated Lee, but he had negated him.
