Member Review There was math involved.

[wausaubob]

It was simple arithmetic. Nothing too perplexing.
Each army horse in the cavalry and artillery, and every mule in quartermaster and commissary train had to be fed. From page 379

The US was set up to meet this challenge as it contained large cities with working horses and mules, and close in dairy farms, and it had long winters.
The Confederacy could make up some of the need by livestock living on forage. I don't think a horse can work and graze at the same time. At some point a working horse has to get grain.
And from page 406 we read: https://books.google.com/books?id=K...ce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

A river cannot be torn up. And normally the riverboats can pass, without sidings or double track. And in the Confederate states, the rivers connected all the major cities to the national economy.
Its a sad fact that as soon as the US achieved naval dominance on internal rivers the US had a tremendous advantage over the Confederacy. The US armies were more mobile, tended to be bigger, and could be resupplied and reinforced much easier than could the Confederates accomplish. The war proceeds to December 1864. Sherman is marching to a coast occupied in part by the US and patrolled by the US navy. Grant's logistics in Virginia are completely based on water transport. Even Thomas' operation is supplied in part by transportation on the Cumberland River. And the river is patrolled by boats under the control of Commodore Lee, the Virginian in the navy.
Even Schofield's force, yupp, transported by water from Annapolis to Wilmington, NC.

Reliable steamboat and steamships., supplemented by the more expensive and limited railroads, and also supplemented by the existing sailing vessels on the ocean made the US Civil War a modern war. And the distances involved were so much shorter than those involved for France and Britain in the Crimean War that the impact of naval power was even more obvious in the US Civil War.

 

[CowCavalry]

The US was set up to meet this challenge as it contained large cities with working horses and mules, and close in dairy farms, and it had long winters.

I agree the US was better set up to supply livestock and fodder but I don't understand how any of the above has anything to do with it.

 

[wausaubob]

I agree the US was better set up to supply livestock and fodder but I don't understand how any of the above has anything to do with it.

The US was set up to supply grain and hay to the working horses and mules in the big cities. The dairy farms close to the cities and the railroads were already in the business of producing and buying grain and hay. Each city had a large number of horses doing delivery work, pulling carriages and trolleys, and others employed as personal riding mounts.
The US was set up to produce hay and more importantly oats, because that's what the animals ate during the winter months. As long as the hay and oats was produced near a railroad, it was about the same whether it was shipped to New York City or to the army in Virginia.