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Advantages and
Disadvantages for North
and South
IB HL Essay Question
2006
Assess the relative strengths of the North and
the South at the beginning of the United States
Civil War in 1861.
2007
Why, in spite of the advantages of the North
over the South, did the Civil War in the United
States last so long?
Advantages of South
1. Could fight a defensive war – North would have to
invade, win, and force the South back into the Union.
South just had to tie / draw, not win, to remain an
independent Confederacy - same advantage the US had
over the British in the Revolutionary War
Fear of reprisals
Siege Mentality
Competition for jobs
Ties of Kinship
Social Mobility / Ownership
Force of Race
Legal / Constitutional
Slave Power / “Slaveocracy” / “slaveocrats”?
4. The South had the best commanders, Robert E Lee
was a great strategist and motivator. (Lincoln had
offered him command of the North’s armies but he
turned it down when his own state of Virginia seceded).
Stonewall Jackson too was a great strategist / tactician,
a master of speed and deception, and inspired his men
by his own bravery on the battlefield
5. Southern soldiers were mostly from rural backgrounds
and so were experienced with guns and horse-riding: they
generally tended to be better soldiers (their high pitched
“rebel-yell” struck terror).
When the surplus ran out, the British were supplied from
new sources such as India and Egypt.
States put their own interests first: each state raised its own
forces, often decided on when and where to use them,
sometimes refusing to fight under commanders from other
states, or serve outside their own borders: some states
seemed ready to quickly secede from the Confederacy
(Georgia) if they did not get their way…
- introduced a blockade
- increased the size of the Army
- suspended Habeas Corpus
- supervised ballot in border states (colored ballots
indicating party, somewhat illegal)
- suspended newspapers and arrested editors on
ground of obstructing war
9. King Wheat and King Corn helped enormously – due to
bad harvests, British bought huge quantities of grain
from the North: If they had broken the blockade to get
Cotton, they would have provoked the North to war and
lost the precious grain supplies