- Joined
- Apr 4, 2017
- Location
- Denver, CO
Ship building and boat building had slowed down.
p. 107. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/preliminary-report/1860e-06.pdf
The British were reasserting their position on the world's oceans. The California Gold Rush was slowing. The railroads were taking more of the internal traffic. And the relative advantage of the US in building wooden ships with powerful sails had declined. The advantage was shifting back to England and Germany.
But the infrastructure to build and outfit the ships still existed. The manpower to rev up the industry and man the ships with sailors and captains, still existed.
This was by far the main industrial advantage of the US over the Confederacy. In the initial stages of the Civil War it led to numerous strategic victories for the US.
In the middle period of the war, it was the US' agricultural advantages that allowed it to endure Confederate victories. With respect to agriculture, the horses, the oats and the hay, were all in the northern states, as shown in the recapitulation.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/agriculture/1860b-09.pdf
The US economy had already evolved to the point of supplying large numbers of horses in and around cities, and keeping livestock alive during a longer winter. Shifting that capability to supplying the fodder necessary to sustain the horses and mules of a large army, was significantly easier for the US than it was for the Confederacy.
p. 107. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/preliminary-report/1860e-06.pdf
The British were reasserting their position on the world's oceans. The California Gold Rush was slowing. The railroads were taking more of the internal traffic. And the relative advantage of the US in building wooden ships with powerful sails had declined. The advantage was shifting back to England and Germany.
But the infrastructure to build and outfit the ships still existed. The manpower to rev up the industry and man the ships with sailors and captains, still existed.
This was by far the main industrial advantage of the US over the Confederacy. In the initial stages of the Civil War it led to numerous strategic victories for the US.
In the middle period of the war, it was the US' agricultural advantages that allowed it to endure Confederate victories. With respect to agriculture, the horses, the oats and the hay, were all in the northern states, as shown in the recapitulation.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/agriculture/1860b-09.pdf
The US economy had already evolved to the point of supplying large numbers of horses in and around cities, and keeping livestock alive during a longer winter. Shifting that capability to supplying the fodder necessary to sustain the horses and mules of a large army, was significantly easier for the US than it was for the Confederacy.