Warring sides 3397 per cent of the nation's firearms in 1860,
held more than 80 per cent of the national
bank deposits, accounted for more than
85 per cent of capital invested in industry
and manufactured 15 times as much iron as
the Confederate states and virtually all of the
nation's textiles (though heavily dependent
on southern cotton) and shoes and boots.
There were 800,000 draft animals in the
North compared with just 300,000 in the
Confederate states - a tremendous logistical
advantage in an era when armies moved by
horse and mule power. In agricultural
production, the two sides stood roughly at
parity in terms of the ratio of production to
overall population.
A third northern advantage lay in the area
of professional military forces. Lincoln's
These members of the Sumter Light Guards of
Americus, Georgia, were typical of the hundreds of
thousands of men who joined infantry companies
following the outbreak of war. The photographer posed
them in Augusta, Georgia, in April 1861, while they were
en route to join the Confederate army in Virginia. The
Guards became Company K of the 4th Georgia Infantry
and saw extensive action. (Library of Congress)government began the conflict with an army
and a navy, while the Davis administration
had to build from scratch. But the United
States army numbered only about 14,000 in
the spring of 1861 (many southern officers
had resigned to support the Confederacy)
and lay scattered across the country in
small posts, many of them in the vast
trans-Mississippi territories. Like the
Confederacy, the North had to build huge