Essay, Research Paper: Finicial Difficualty South During The Civil War

Deconstruction

The Deconstruction of the South
In the Civil War






The financial difficulty and social decline in the confederacy was caused by the civil war which in turn caused the complete deconstruction of the Southern culture. Factors such as morale, poverty, lack of jobs, and lack of capital are some reasons why the South performed so poorly in the war. Another factor is the lack of manpower in the Southern forces and at home. These are all factors in the total demise of the Southern way of life.
The U.S. statistics at Gettysburg prove superiority over the C.S. One reason is that the Northern army usually outnumbered the Southern army. The number of Northern solders at the Battle of Gettysburg was overwhelming. The ratio of Northern to Southern men was almost 2:1. At the Battle of Gettysburg the Northern forces were the dominant army. The USA was represented by eighteen states. The Confederate States of America (CSA) had twelve states representing them. There were thirty-eight corps of Calvary for the USA and only twenty-eight for the CSA. A

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total of two hundred forty-six United States infantry corps dominated the one-hundred sixty-seven infantry corps of the Confederate States. The USA had sixty-eight artillery corps, while the Confederates were right behind them with sixty-seven. The real difference came in the cannons. The North had approximately 5.4 cannons per corps and the South had 2.2 cannons per corps. There was a total of three hundred seventy cannons in the Union artillery corps and only one hundred fifty cannons in the Confederates' artillery corp. In all, there were one hundred five thousand fighting Yankees at the Battle of Gettysburg, whereas, the Rebels had sixty-two thousand fighting men. That is a difference of six states, seventy-nine infantry corps, ten Calvary, one artillery, two-hundred twenty cannons, and forty-three thousand men all in the Union's favor. The death total for the North was fifteen thousand; the Confederacy lost thirty-five thousand men. The South lost twenty thousand more men than the North. These losses were devastating to the South's morale. It was William Tecumseh Sherman who said "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty and you can not refine it". The Union certainly was cruel to the Confederates. Had the South fought only the smaller battles, and refrained from taking the entire North on at once, (as
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in Gettysburg), their losses would have been much less. Not only did the South lose more men per battle, but they also became more and more outnumbered after every battle.
The Confederate army never had a chance to win this battle and should not have fought. Not all battles went like Gettysburg for the South, but those that did were always remembered. Every time the South stepped onto the battlefield, there were reminders of battles such as Gettysburg. Due to the lack of manpower and equipment, the confederacy should not have fought at Gettysburg. However, if the South had been more conservative and careful in their tactics they might not have suffered such heavy losses at Gettysburg. With defeats like Gettysburg it is not a wonder that they lost the war. General Picket lost seventy percent of his men, and he was one of the better generals. Losing that many men was a huge blow to his career and to his men's careers also. The South brought insufficient equipment and manpower to fight at Gettysburg. This is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. With more cannons, the South would have been able to hold off the enemy fire on their own men, in order to get in range. With more men, the South would have shot more bullets per round of fire, killing more of the enemy, and therefore receiving less Yankee fire. Superior U.S. statistics prevented the Confederates' chance of
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winning at Gettysburg and should have convinced Southern leaders to forego this morale devastating battle. The Confederacy's financial situation was even bleaker then it's morale.
The Confederate army could not afford to pay it's soldiers. The confederate officials promised to pay at the beginning of the month, but the money never came, creating false hopes. When the money was not paid, the Confederates' will to fight suffered greatly. When payday finally came, most men received no pay at all. Those who were lucky enough to receive pay, received only a fraction of what they where due. These guys were so broke, Southern generals encouraged Confederate solders to defile the dead bodies on the battlefield. Surviving Rebels were told to keep whatever personal items they found on the dead Yankees or their fallen comrades. Once a Rebel soldier finally got paid, he could not send the money home to his wife and family because the roads were constantly being closed.
The entire South was poverty-stricken. There are three reasons for this. One was because all of the products produced went to the war effort. There was not anything to buy even if someone had money. The second reason for the poverty was that there were not men at home to
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work in the factories and make money to support their families. The men could not send money home and they could not stay home and support their families. There were some draft-dodging men who stayed behind. These men were the only men left, so they took whatever they wanted. They were the lords of their cities. Theft of what was left was the third reason for the South's poverty. Without the men at home, the crime rate increased. Crimes such as theft and murder were up sixteen times in some cities. There was pillaging and ransacking everywhere. Law was not present in the South at this time. Because of all of this chaos, many men were forced to dessert and return home to protect their families. Lack of compensation for involvement in the war, loss of income from previous employment, and losses due to theft created a poverty-stricken South hardly worth fighting for. So, when men finally returned home, there were no jobs for them there, an additional blow to morale.
Pride would not allow Confederates to take jobs from Yankees. They could not go to the North for a job, even though there were plenty of jobs in the North. They were too proud to take jobs from the Yankees. At Appomattox Courthouse, after the treaty was signed, Ulysses S. Grant said, "The war is over, the Rebels are our countrymen again." Apparently the Confederates did not agree with him. A Southern
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gentleman would not work for Northerners. These men would watch their families starve before working for the North. Some men returning from defeat were so beaten and had lost so much pride that they could not work. They left their families to fend for themselves. These men had no pride left and came home with their tails between their legs. They were not the men that had left four years earlier. These men were totally broken. To make matters worse, the jobs that were in the South were taken up by blacks.
Many slaves had jobs in Confederate factories. There were not many available jobs in the South and those that were available were in the factories. For many of the solders to pay off their debts, they had to sell their slaves during the war. When the men went off to war there was no one left to work in the factories, so these slaves were hired. They were paid, got to live wherever they wanted, and worked normal hours. This was such an improvement from their old slavery days, that the ex-slaves worked twice as hard as the men who used to work there. They did such a good job that when the men came back from war the ex-slaves kept their jobs and the solders were left unemployed. It was bad enough that the Rebels lost their jobs, but losing out to the hatred, inferior Negro, was an
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even bigger insult. The Confederates did not agree with Benjamin F. Butler who said, "The colored man fills an equal place in the ranks while he lives and an equal grave when he falls." This was an insult to the Southern man. The confederates believed Negroes lesser then themselves. At the start of the war, there were enough men so that the slaves only did the dangerous work. The Rebels justified this, saying they did not want the fighting men getting hurt. After more and more men left for war, the slaves started getting paid a little more and they had the better jobs. Since returning Rebels could not work for Northerners, and could not replace hardworking Negroes in their former factory jobs, unemployment was the final blow to the Southern morale motivation and performance. To make matters worse, the Confederacy was losing men right and left.
Many Southern men were deserting the army. It is impossible to fight a war without men and the confederacy was losing its men. The two main causes for this are deserters and death. With all of these men deserting and no new ones enlisting, it was only a matter of time before they would not have enough men to fight. Men deserted the army for two reasons. The first reason is because they were not getting paid. There is not much reason to fight if you are not going to get paid for it. These men
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had families to support. The other reason is because the crime rate was so high. In the state of Louisiana alone, petty theft was up by seven hundred and one counts in the year of eighteen sixty-three, breaking and entering up one hundred thirty two, and robbery with murder was up forty-eight counts higher. With all of this crime, and no one to stop the men from doing it, many solders decided to desert to protect their families. There were two options for the men to choose from: stay with the army and fight while their families were being robbed or killed or, desert and be called a traitor, coward, and an outlaw. The men only got to choose one of these if they lived long enough to make their decision.
Death took many Southern men's lives. The number of dead confederates was immense. From the state of Louisiana alone, there were seventy thousand men that did not return home after the war. It is hard to imagine seventy thousand men dying, much less from one state. Over the course of the war, an estimated three hundred seventy five thousand pounds of lead were extracted from confederate solders. Many of these were dead men, but those who were not dead might have well have been dead, because they probably were not any use to the army any more. Men with amputations were like a crutch; the South had to support them
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because they could not support themselves. The North captured those men that did not die in battle. There were a total of fifty six thousand men that died in union prisons. These men felt as though they were dying for no reason. They were not fighting or protecting their families. Desertion, capture, crippling, injuries and death greatly reduced the South's male population, thereby escalating the Southern collapse. With the loss of so many men, the South was having a complete industrial meltdown.
Competition from overseas companies wiped out Southern manufacturers. The South could not keep up with its overseas competitors. Many of the items from other countries that were sold in the South were smuggled into the country. The items were smuggled either by commercial passenger liner or by private freighter landing in Mexico and taken by train to the South. The confederate army did not have the money, ships, or manpower to patrol the entire coast and all their borders. The foreigners knew this, and they took advantage of the situation. Without taxes on these items, the foreign products were much cheaper than the domestic products. Additionally, the foreign countries were rich enough to lowball the confederates. The Southern factories lost allot of business to the cheaper products of the foreigners. Due to the loss of income, the Southern factories were closing down. After most of the
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Southern producers were closed, the overseas producers increased their prices to outrageous amounts. With prices so high, even if someone did have money they could not afford to buy anything. Any factories that remained open did not have men to work in them.
Problems within Southern factories hastened their downfall. Because there were not men to work in the factories, the South had to improvise a little. There were children as young as nine working in the factories if they were not off at war already. Many women were also working in the factories due to the shortage of people. This improvised labor force additionally reduced factory production, because there was such tight competition between companies, riots often broke out between different manufacturers. This added to the decline in production. There was very little to buy and even if there had been, the C.S.A. had no money to buy it with. Pressure from overseas competition, internal labor problems, and riots between local competitors resulted in complete industrial failure in the South during the Civil War.
Without the right equipment, the Confederate army was immobile. For an army to win a war, they must be mobile. If the army can not move around and get a more strategic position, or march to their next battle with
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all of their supplies, they will have a harder time winning. They are like sitting ducks. Unfortunately, the more mobile an army is, the more expensive it is also. Most of the confederate solders did not have shoes for marching in or jackets to wear when it got cold. The confederate army did not have horses or wagons for carrying stuff. Most tents and blankets had more holes than fabric. Men were using guns that barely worked and were making their own bullets out of bullets they pulled out of people that had been killed. This was no way to fight a war and certainly no way to win. The only option the South had was to take loans.
No one wanted to give the Confederates a loan. Although loans were not big in the South, there was some borrowing. About one percent of all war spending was borrowed. That really is not that much borrowed money. The first reason for the limited external funding is because of Southern pride. The South had too much pride to admit they needed help. Another reason for the lack in loaning is because of poor planning. The South was only planning for a war three months long. They had the resources and funding for a war this long. They did not think realistically. Since the Confederacy did not request a loan until they were already financially indebted, they had a hard time gaining a loan. The loan that

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they finally got was for one dollar and twelve cents per person. That was insufficient for their needs.
The way the Confederate army did get a loan was a never-ending circle. The South could not get a loan unless they were doing well in the war, but without a loan they could not buy the supplies for the men, so they could not do well. The percent of interest on the loan was based on the probability of winning the war, which was not very high without supplies. So the South did not have supplies to perform to the top of their abilities. They could not get a good loan because the outcome was so uncertain. There were three models for getting a loan. Model number one is the moral hazard of giving the South a loan. If the South gets a loan and the Union wins, the North would be pretty angry at whoever gave the South a loan. The second model is setting an interest rate upon the probability of being successful. The third model is the reason for the loan and the amount to be given. If the South is buying cannons with the money, they will receive more then say, buying food with the loan. Needless to say, the hardship of getting a loan drastically changed the spending per solder over the course of the war.


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Total spending per soldier changed over the course of the war. At the start of the war, the South was spending eighty-six dollars per person per year. By the time the war ended, the South was spending forty-three dollars per person per year. This is a major change in the amount of available supplies. At the very end, food was the only item on the expense account. Nothing else could be afforded to purchase. Confederates were picking up the dead union solders' guns and ammunition to continue their fight. No one could win a war this way.
In conclusion, the South lost more than lives. It lost its whole culture. It is almost like an entire civilization was wiped out with the secession and eventual surrender of the Southern states. The lack of capital and social problems was created by the Civil War, which caused the downfall of the Southern culture.