The world around war
Northern and Southern society
adjust to the demands of war
Although armies and battles often
dominated the headlines, the war also
touched the lives of millions of people
behind the lines. Those in the Confederacy
generally experienced the conflict more
directly. The armies campaigned almost
exclusively on southern soil, disrupting the
Confederate economy and social structure to
a far greater degree than was the case in the
North. Yet both societies coped with a range
of changes and tensions as they prosecuted a
war while also addressing day-to-day needs.
The northern home front
The northern economy proved fully capable
of producing ample war-related materials
and consumer goods. Farmers grew record
crops of wheat in 1862 and 1863 despite the
absence of about a third of the agricultural
workforce. The wide-scale use of machinery,
including reapers and mowers, and the labor
of women and children allowed production
to increase. One observer in 1863 noted a
'great revolution which machinery is making
in production.' 'At the present time,' he
continued, 'so perfect is machinery that men
seem to be of less necessity. ... We have seen,
within the past few weeks, a stout matron
whose sons are in the army, with her team
cutting hay at seventy-five cents per acre,
and she cut seven acres with ease in a day,
riding leisurely upon her cutter.' As it fed
soldiers numbering in the hundreds of
thousands, the North managed also to
exceed pre-war exports of beef, pork, corn,
and wheat. Much of this bounty went to
Great Britain, which imported a significant
percentage of its grain from the North.
The United States government became a
major purchaser of manufactured products
and food, collecting goods for distribution to
men in the ranks on a scale that anticipated
patterns in two twentieth-century world wars.
Several industries used ante bellum
technological advances to meet increased
demand. In response to military contracts,
production of canned foods, including
condensed milk, shot up. Clothing
manufacturers employed workers using
sewing machines to churn out ready-made
garments in standard sizes, and shoe
factories delivered the nation's first
mass-produced footwear differentiating
between right and left feet. Shoulder weapons
and pistols emerged from the assembly lines
at arms companies in New England and
elsewhere. Military-related businesses
understandably benefited most from the war.
Union soldiers wore wool uniforms, which
helped double woollen production. Cotton
textile firms, in contrast, felt acutely the loss
of southern cotton. Northern railroads
doubled their traffic and improved their
tracks, engines, and rolling stock.
Although the northern economy presented
a generally bright appearance, darker elements
marred the overall picture. Wages lagged
behind inflation, and strikes broke out in a
number of industries. Anthracite coal miners
in Pennsylvania accused the Lincoln
administration of colluding with owners to
keep wages low and break workers' resistance
in the name of maintaining production vital
to the national interest. Middle-class women
entered the nursing profession in large
numbers for the first time and filled some
secretarial and clerical positions previously
reserved mainly for men, but poorer women
fared less well. They held roughly a third of
the manufacturing jobs (up from about a
quarter in 1860, and concentrated, as before
the war, in such industries as textiles and
shoe-making), receiving wages that increased
at less than half the rate of men's. In the