- Joined
- Apr 4, 2017
- Location
- Denver, CO
The basic fact is illustrated in page xvii of the 1860 census report. An immigrant society, like that which existed in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, had a huge preponderance of military age men. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/population/1860a-02.pdf?#
The Confederate political victory of establishing their insurgent nation, and winning the great battles of 1862, slowed immigration in 1861, and 1862, but by 1863, immigration resumed at a normal level and accelerated. https://books.google.com/books?id=c...al review of immigration 1820 to 1910&f=false
The United States was drawing on a virtually unlimited manpower pool reaching through Canada, back to Britain, Germany and Scandinavia.
This impacted the early part of the war, when Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa were able to invade and overwhelm the Confederates in the Border States.
But the other factor that made the outcome inevitable was the vast majority of naval and marine merchant capacity was in the northern states. As page 107 of the preliminary report of the 1860 census recorded, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/preliminary-report/1860e-06.pdf?#, this advantage was studiously published to the world in May 1862. Prof. Gallagher noted that there were three ship yards in the south, in Pensacola, a private yard in New Orleans, in Norfolk. There was also a closed shipyard in Memphis, as noted by Bern Anderson. By the first week of June 1862, the US occupied all these places.
What the US administration never admitted, was the concepts of the original blockade plan were never abandoned. Every effort would be made to tighten the blockade, to prevent the Confederates from building ships that could break the blockade, and to make whatever concessions were required by Britain, to keep the English from interfering with the blockade.
And the two factors worked together. Due to immigration, in New York harbor and on the interior rivers, the US had unlimited naval manpower, both for the fighting vessels, and for the transports and colliers that kept the system running.
There was nothing the Confederates could do about these two factors. Even an armistice would not have ended immigration. It continued as the war progressed. So eventually the Northeast, Midwest and Great West would overwhelm the Confederacy.
And with respect to naval power, despite their powerful forts, ironclads and ingenious mines, the US navy had 670 vessels by January 1865. Thus the last and decisive fight of the war, was the combined arms effort to capture Fort Fisher outside of Wilmington, NC. The modern features of this battle, with its amphibious landings and tremendous bombardment, were beyond anything the US could do in 1865.
All the war did was demonstrate, that due to naval power, and rapidly increasing population, the US was an emerging world power.
The Confederate political victory of establishing their insurgent nation, and winning the great battles of 1862, slowed immigration in 1861, and 1862, but by 1863, immigration resumed at a normal level and accelerated. https://books.google.com/books?id=c...al review of immigration 1820 to 1910&f=false
The United States was drawing on a virtually unlimited manpower pool reaching through Canada, back to Britain, Germany and Scandinavia.
This impacted the early part of the war, when Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa were able to invade and overwhelm the Confederates in the Border States.
But the other factor that made the outcome inevitable was the vast majority of naval and marine merchant capacity was in the northern states. As page 107 of the preliminary report of the 1860 census recorded, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/preliminary-report/1860e-06.pdf?#, this advantage was studiously published to the world in May 1862. Prof. Gallagher noted that there were three ship yards in the south, in Pensacola, a private yard in New Orleans, in Norfolk. There was also a closed shipyard in Memphis, as noted by Bern Anderson. By the first week of June 1862, the US occupied all these places.
What the US administration never admitted, was the concepts of the original blockade plan were never abandoned. Every effort would be made to tighten the blockade, to prevent the Confederates from building ships that could break the blockade, and to make whatever concessions were required by Britain, to keep the English from interfering with the blockade.
And the two factors worked together. Due to immigration, in New York harbor and on the interior rivers, the US had unlimited naval manpower, both for the fighting vessels, and for the transports and colliers that kept the system running.
There was nothing the Confederates could do about these two factors. Even an armistice would not have ended immigration. It continued as the war progressed. So eventually the Northeast, Midwest and Great West would overwhelm the Confederacy.
And with respect to naval power, despite their powerful forts, ironclads and ingenious mines, the US navy had 670 vessels by January 1865. Thus the last and decisive fight of the war, was the combined arms effort to capture Fort Fisher outside of Wilmington, NC. The modern features of this battle, with its amphibious landings and tremendous bombardment, were beyond anything the US could do in 1865.
All the war did was demonstrate, that due to naval power, and rapidly increasing population, the US was an emerging world power.