The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

Economic and Social Effects, North and South 389

Vicksburg, he abandoned his communications and
supply lines and struck at Jackson, the capital of
Mississippi. In a series of swift engagements his troops
captured Jackson, cutting off the army of General
John C. Pemberton, defending Vicksburg, from other
Confederate units. Turning next on Pemberton, Grant
defeated him in two decisive battles, Champion’s Hill
and Big Black River, and drove him inside the
Vicksburg fortifications. By mid-May the city was
under siege. Grant applied relentless pressure, and on
July 4 Pemberton surrendered. With Vicksburg in
Union hands, federal gunboats could range the entire
length of the Mississippi. Texas and Arkansas were for
all practical purposes lost to the Confederacy.
Lincoln had disliked Grant’s plan for capturing
Vicksburg. Now he generously confessed his error and
placed Grant in command of all federal troops west of
the Appalachians. Grant promptly took charge of the
fighting around Chattanooga, Tennessee, where
Confederate advances, beginning with the Battle of
Chickamauga (September 19–20), were threatening to
develop into a major disaster for the North. Shifting
corps commanders and bringing up fresh units, he
won another decisive victory at Chattanooga in a series
of battles ending on November 25, 1863. This cleared
the way for an invasion of Georgia. Suddenly this
unkempt, stubby little man, who looked more like a
tramp than a general, emerged as the military leader
the North had been so desperately seeking. In March
1864 Lincoln summoned him to Washington, named
him lieutenant general, and gave him supreme com-
mand of the armies of the United States.

Economic and Social Effects, North and South

Although much blood would yet be spilled, by the end
of 1863 the Confederacy was on the road to defeat.
Northern military pressure, gradually increasing, was
eroding the South’s most precious resource: man-
power. An ever-tightening naval blockade was reducing
its economic strength. Shortages developed that, com-
bined with the flood of currency pouring from the
presses, led to drastic inflation. By 1864 an officer’s
coat cost $2,000 in Confederate money, cigars sold for
$10 each, butter was $25 a pound, and flour went for
$275 a barrel. Wages rose too, but not nearly as rapidly.
The southern railroad network was gradually wear-
ing out, the major lines maintaining operations only by
cannibalizing less vital roads. Imported products such
as coffee disappeared; even salt became scarce. Efforts
to increase manufacturing were only moderately suc-
cessful because of the shortage of labor, capital, and
technical knowledge. In general, southern prejudice
against centralized authority prevented the Confederacy
from making effective use of its scarce resources. Even

blockade running was left in private hands until 1864.

Precious cargo space that should have been reserved for

medical supplies and arms was often devoted to high-

priced luxuries.

In the North, after a brief depression in 1861

caused by the uncertainties of the situation and the

loss of southern business, the economy flourished:

Government purchases greatly stimulated certain lines

of manufacturing, the railroads operated at close to

capacity and with increasing efficiency, the farm

machinery business boomed because so many farmers

left their fields to serve in the army, and bad harvests

in Europe boosted agricultural prices.

Congress passed a number of economic measures

long desired but held up in the past by southern opposi-

tion. The Homestead Act (1862)gave 160 acres to

any settler who would farm the land for five years. The

Morrill Land Grant Act of the same year provided the

states with land at the rate of 30,000 acres for each

member of Congress to support state agricultural col-

leges. Various tariff acts raised the duties on manufac-

tured goods to an average rate of 47 percent in order to

protect domestic manufacturers from foreign competi-

tion. The Pacific Railway Act (1862) authorized subsi-

dies in land and money for the construction of a

transcontinental railroad. And the National Banking Act

of 1863 gave the country, at last, a uniform currency.

All these laws stimulated the economy. Whether the

overall economic effect of the Civil War on the Union

was beneficial is less clear. Since it was fought mostly

with rifles, light cannon, horses, and wagons, it had

Edouard Manet, the French impressionist, painted the battle of the

USS Kearsargeand the CSS Alabamaoff the coast of Cherbourg,

France in 1864. The Alabama, the Confederacy’s most destructive

ocean raider, sank twenty minutes after the battle.

Source: Art Resource/Philadelphia Museum of Art.