18 ChaPter^1
One northern observer warned the South what to expect when the war
ended. “Our capitalists are going into your country,” he boasted, “because
they see a chance to make money there, but you must not think they will give
your people the benefit of the money they make. That will come North and
enrich their heirs.” He was, indeed, right. The North already held significant
economic advantages that had helped it win the Civil War. The Union had
produced three times more wealth than the Confederacy as of 1861; had two-
and-a-half times more railroad mileage; 9 times more merchant ship tonnage;
a factory production advantage of ten-to-one; textile production that was 17
times greater; 20 times more iron production and 38 times more coal mined;
and 32 times more firearms production. Even southern agriculture, the basis
of the entire political and economic order of the region, was small compared
to the North. The Union states had 3 times more farm acreage and almost
twice as many draft animals; one-and-a-half times more livestock; 4 times
more wheat; and twice as much corn produced. Only in the production of
cotton, where there was a 24:1 ratio, did the South have any economic advan-
tage. Looking at such numbers [see graph below] it is not hard to understand
how the North won the war.
And that advantage only grew in the postwar period. Businessmen and
speculators went south as the war was ending and ended up owning half of
southern farmland. Per capita income, the amount of money one made in a
year, was much lower in the South too. If the national base income was $100,
southerners made about $76 in 1840, $72 in 1860, $51 in 1880 and 1900, and
only $62 in 1910, about a half-century after the Civil War started. By contrast,FIGuRE 1-4 Resources of the union and of the Confederacy