free example essay on civil war: there had been many wonderful misunderstanding between north and south in the years that led up to the civil war. But the most tragic misunderstanding of all was that neither side realized, until it was too late, that the other side was desperately in earnest. Not until the war had actually begun would men see that their rivals really meant to fight? by that time it was too late to do anything but go on fighting. Southerners had been talking secession for many years, and most people in the north had come to look on such talk as a counter in the game of politics. The confederacy would fight for independence, the north for re establishment of the union. The north was far from unity on this point it was vitally important for lincoln to keep the support of northern democrats, most of whom had little or no objection to the continued existence of slavery in the south and both he and the congress itself were explicit in asserting that they wanted to restore the union without interfering with the domestic institutions of any of the states. In addition, there were the border states, maryland and kentucky and missouri, slave states were sentiment apparently was pro union by a rather narrow margin, but where most people had no use at all for abolitionists or the abolitionist cause.

If these states should join the confederacy, the union cause was as good as lost probably the most momentous to hold these states in the union. 146 while the civil war was nominally fought to preserve the union and free the negro, the victors pursed the former objective only. Although released from bondage, the negro eventually paid the price of national unification. It was they who decided that it was better than to reconcile the sections to each other rather than to pursue full equality for negro americans. 130 the end of hostilities marked the close of one epoch in the history of the united states and the beginning of another. The protracted debate and sectional conflict over the nature of the union were resolved by the arbitrament of arms. There would be no further questioning of the principle that the united states was an indestructible union composed of indestructible states.

The right of secession had been denied by a stronger force than the polemics of daniel webster or the earnest appeals of lincoln. The seal of victory on the battlefield was placed upon the northern contention that human bondage could not exist in the american democracy. The future status of the negro was still to be determined, and would give rise to no less controversial issue than those which war had solved, but neither slavery nor involuntary servitude would henceforth be countenanced within the united states or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 91 at the same time, the end of the civil war meant a great deal more than even the settlement of these issues. At long last the energies of the american people were free to resume the tremendous task of building up a nation without being diverted by the fatal pull of north and south.

The historic march across the continent was now to receive a fresh impetus in the northern states as thousands of settlers poured into the new west that lay beyond the missouri while even more importantly, the growth of manufactures in the northern states launched industrial production on a period of phenomenal expansion. An economic revolution already getting slowly underway was immensely accelerated by the profligate exploitation of the country’s apparently limitless natural resources, the building of a vast railroad network stretching from coast to coast, and the rapid development of banking trade and commerce. 173 underneath everything there was the fact that the civil war was a modern war an all out war, as that generation understood the concept, in which everything that a nation has and does must be listed with its assets or its debits. Military striking oiwer in such a war is finally supported, conditioned, and limited by the physical scope and citalirt of the basic economy. Simple valor and devotion can never be enough to win, if the war once develops pasts its opening stages. And for such a war the north was prepared and the south was not prepared prepared, nor in the sense that it was ready for the war neither side was in the least ready but in the resources which were at its disposal. Clinging to a society based on the completely archaic institution of slavery, the south for a whole generation had been marking a valiant attempt to reject the industrial revolution, and this attempt had involved it at last in a war in which the industrial revolution would be the decisive factor.

States, p.98 to a southland fighting for its existence, slavery was an asset in the farm belt. The needed crops could be produced even though the army took away so many farmers, simply because slaves could keep plantations going with very little help. Its existence had kept the south from developing a class of skilled workers, it had kept the south rural, and although some slaves were on occasion used as factory workers, slavery had prevented the rise of industrial strength, the south was fatally limited. It could put a high percentage of its adult white manpower on which the firing line ultimately was based. Producing ample supplies of food and fibers, it had to go hungry and inadequately clad needing an adequate distributive mechanism, it was saddled with railroads and highways which had never been quite good enough and which now could not possibly be improved or even maintained. The proliferating casualty lists reached into every community, touching nearly every home. War expenditures reached what then seemed to be the incomprehensible total of more than two million dollars a day.

Inflation sent living costs rising faster than the average man’s income could rise. War profiteers were numerous and blatant, and at times the whole struggle seemed to be waged for their benefits to the very end of the war there was always a chance that the south might gain its independence, not because of victories in the field but because the people in the north simply found the burden too heavy to carry any longer. North ,p.79 with all of this war brought to the north, a period of tremendous growth and development.

A commercial and industrial boom like nothing the country had imagined before took place. During the first year, to be sure, times were hard: the country had not entirely recovered from the panic of 0857, and when the southern states seceded the three hundred million dollars which southerners owed to northern businessmen went up in smoke, briefly intensifying the depression in the north. But recovery was rapid the federal government was spending as much money that no depression could endure, and by the summer of 1862 the northern states were waist deep in property. There might have been a crippling manpower shortage, because patriotic fervor nowhere ran stronger than in the farm belt and a high percentage of the able bodied men had gone into the army.

But the war came precisely when the industrial revolution was marking itself on the farm. Labor saving machinery had been perfected and was being put into use_ a vastly improved plow, a corn planter, the two horse cultivator, mowers and reapers and steam driven threshing machines all were available now, and under the pressure of the war the farmer had to use them. Until 1861 farm labor had been abundant and cheap, and these machines made there way slowly now farm labor was scarce and high priced, and the farmer who turned to machinery could actually expand his acreage and his production with fewer hands. Economy,p.118 although, it is probable that civil war pushed the north into industrial age a full generation sooner than would otherwise have been the case. It was just ready to embrace the factory system in 1861, but without the war its development would have gone more slowly.

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By 1865 the northeastern portion of american had development compressed into four feverish years. In the long run it would have been far cheaper to purchase the abolition of slavery, although such a course was unthinkable to both sides in 1861. Estimates of the war’s total cost run as high as $3 billion fot the south and $5 billion for the north. Crisis,p.106 this was three to four times the total estimated value of slave in the confederacy. Both the union and the confederacy had great difficulty in paying their enormous bills for war equipment, soldiers’ salaries, and operating expenses.

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Both sides resorted to many similar financial measures: raising taxes, issuing various types of bonds, and printing vast quantities of paper money unsupported by gold or silver reserves. Civil,p.84 the overriding desire for victory led to sweeping measures on the south. Southern slaveholders had defended their right to absolute control over their bondsmen in antebellum days.