WK#4

DQ#1 – The Civil War In the beginning, each side in the Civil War believed the war
would be brief and that their side would win. What advantages did each side hold that
made them feel this way? Elaborate.

Hello Professor and Classmates,

Both, the South and the North had very strong reasons showing their war position
advantage. However, key factors in any war are typically man power, soldiers, and
strategy to defeat your opponent.

The South felt they were in advantage because they had a much better trained army and
were in a good financial position to fund the war from the cotton export (Keene, Cornell,
& O'Donnell, 2013). The men fighting in the South were also great horseback riders.
Thus, the South felt they were engaging in a defensive war against a Northern army that
the South thought was not very strong. The South was in geographic advantage; the
fighting territory of the South was much larger than the smaller areas of the North
(Keene, Cornell, & O'Donnell, 2013). In addition, the South was sure that Britain and
France would become their allies – in particular Britain because of their cotton
dependency from the South (Keene, Cornell, & O'Donnell, 2013). The South was
confident that the North would not be able to sustain allowing the states to split.

As far as the North, they felt they were in advantage because they had a navy with more
firearms than the South as well as a greater population in the Confederacy, which meant
more soldiers to fight in the war (Keene, Cornell, & O'Donnell, 2013). The North had
large urban areas and industrialized areas giving them a favorable position to easily
defeat the South (Keene, Cornell, & O'Donnell, 2013). However, their main advantage
was their unity in the belief that they were fighting to maintain the Constitution and the
Union (Keene, Cornell, & O'Donnell, 2013).

References

Keene, J. D., Cornell, S., & O'Donnell, E. T. (2013). Visions of America: A history of the
United States. Boston: Pearson.