Civil War. Topics included in PDF.

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Confederacy Loss of the Civil War
One of the events that shaped what is now the United States of America is the Civil War of 1861-1865. When Abraham Lincoln was elected as president in 1860, divisions emerged between North and South majorly due to differences between states that were free and the slaveholding states about the jurisdiction of the national government to outlaw slavery in some of the regions that had not become states. Abraham Lincoln won the election on a pledge to block slavery out of the territories. In the South, seven states seceded to form a new country which was referred to as the Confederate States of America. The Lincoln administration refused to acknowledge and recognize this secession, on the opinion that it would harm the reputation of democracy and dishonor it. They alleged that it would lead to a disastrous precedent that would break up the country into small squabbling nations. The federal garrison at Fort Sumter, Charleston Bay was attacked by the Confederate army in 1861. They demanded that it lower the American flag and surrender. This event triggered the beginning of the war.
“Why did the Confederacy lose?” This question assumes that the Confederacy lost the war on their own account and also assumes that the Confederacy could have actually won it. A simplistic answer to this question is that the Union won the war. It can be said that the Confederacy lost because the military strength in numbers and economic might of the Union outmuscled the Confederacy on every front.

The Confederacy was considerably weaker in essentials of war to win against the determined Union. The North had a larger population of about twenty-two million compared to the South which had a population of about nine million people. About three and a half million of the South’s population were slaves. These slaves were not used in the battle front for the Confederates. Therefore it can be seen that the Confederates could not keep up with the war in terms of manpower. When the war ended, the Confederates had enough reserves of weaponry but lacked the necessary manpower to use them. The Union, through numerical and industrial advantage, therefore, had the upper hand in the war.
The inability of the Confederate government to raise enough finances for the war was a major factor which culminated in its defeat. It’s Congress rejected that taxes be imposed on cotton and the properties of the farmers. The Confederacy suffered a severe inflation during the period of the war. Rather than raise taxes to support the war, the Confederate government decided to sell bonds and print money which had no backing in gold and silver reserves. This led to a rise in inflation and high prices of commodities. This action which was done out of fear of losing support in the war. As most fighting was done in the South, and the Union’s blockade of the Confederate rail system, shortages were reported, and discontent grew among the Southerners. Food riots due to shortages erupted henceforth. A loss of morale and will spread among the southerners across the Confederacy.
Superior leadership in the Union’s government and army proved fatal to the Confederacy. A key to the Union’s victory was leadership under Abraham Lincoln and the appointment of General S. Grant as its military commander. In a better leadership approach, Abraham Lincoln had articulated to his people passionately what they were fighting for than what Jefferson Davies had which created more morale and the drive to fight. As the war approached its end, the Union had devised a better plan to win the war far beyond winning battles between the armies but also in the destruction of the Confederacy’s resources and infrastructure. The Confederacy did not enjoy much success in the battlefields; this could be attributed to a lack of competent commanders. Constant bad news from this battle fronts extinguished the Confederate morale.
The Union had the superior manpower in terms of population compared to the Confederacy. Despite this fact, the Confederacy limited the number of black people participating in the war as soldiers to a bare minimum. This happened due to concerns of the then slaves accessing weapons and the possibility of them turning against the whites. As the war drew close to an end, the Confederacy created a regiment of African American troops who could be freed on condition that they enlisted and that their owners agreed. Only a small number of the African American soldiers enlisted, reports suggest that less than a hundred joined. Most African Americans on both sides of the war performed non-combat duties such as being nurses and cooks.
After the war erupted some slaves in the South so an opportunity to escape their plight by seeking refuge in the military camps of the Union. Some of these slaves who ran to the Union camps were recruited to be spies and were sent back to their territories. They had great value, and this fact was recognized even by the Confederacy as General Robert E. Lee admitted that the enemy’s source of information was through their slaves.
The question of what weight to put on the various factors that led to the Confederate surrender is hard to resolve. It is clear that there were many factors working hand in hand that culminated in the Confederates laying down their arms. Both internal and external factors.