Compare the Relative Importance of Political Leadership, Military Skill and Resources as reasons for the Outcome of the American Civil War.

The North superior resources are, probably with political leadership the foremost reason why the North won the American Civil War.  The South had only nine fifths of the industrial capacity of the North.  This proved to be a great disadvantage for the South, as it plagued their war effort.  The North had well-established artillery works, which could supply all the guns needed for the Union armies.  The South on the other hand had nowhere for guns to be made until later in the war when the Tredgar works in Richmond was established.  The Confederacy had initially hoped to import all the resources they needed from Europe.  However this proved difficult when the Union cleverly placed a blockade on all the Southern ports, which prevented ships leaving and entering.  To surmount the problem of not enough weapons and also the problem of little specie, the Richmond government begin printing its own paper money.  This was another step to independence from the central government, but also a bid to increase the amount of specie.  Due to lack of proper management, inevitable inflation soon hit 7000%.  There was no regulation on the printing of money and so there was eventually too much in the Confederacy.  This caused a great problem for the Southern people and greatly lowered morale.  The North however faced no such problem, as they had a very well organised finance department within the government.  By 1862 the Union had developed efficient management of the Union economy and the flow of military supply.  With well over half of the nation’s railways and combined with the sufficient resources to optimise the use it appeared in North victory was inevitable.  The South did have a third of the nation’s railway mileage, but it didn’t have the resources let alone the workers to optimise this potential transport.  The Southern management of the little resources it had was not to its better advantage.  Davis didn’t divide the scarce resources equally between the West and the East, and just concentrated all the resources around the Virginia theatre.  However if carefully considered this concentration of resources as in fact the correct thing to do.  Virginia was the most important industrial state in the Confederacy and so if this was captured it would have been likely that the rest of the Confederacy would to.  

The least most important factor, which contributed to the outcome of the war, was the military organisation of both sides.  It is said that the South benefited for better general ship in the first half of the war.  The Confederacy did have brilliant tactical leaders who were abler compared with the Union.  Robert.E. Lee was one of the greatest South generals.  A Farmer claims ‘that without Lee’s general ship the Confederacy would have crumbled earlier’.  Lee won many victories despite being outnumbered by the North this gave the Southerners hope and dampened the North morale.  Lee had a good strategic vision, but this was limited to the Virginia theatre.  This left the West of America open for the taking, which is said to of been the reason why the South lost the war.  The North also had some great generals.  U.S. Grant is said to be the greatest general of the American Civil War, with his capture of Fort Donelson in 1862, and victory at Vicksburg in 1863.  Grant had the concept of total-war strategy, which his supporters believed was necessary to win the war.  During the war there was a great outcry for the South to use guerrilla style warfare against the North.  The South having applied this style of warfare would have eroded the Northern will to fight.  The main reason why the Confederacy neglected the West was the poor organisation of the military departments.  The West was an extensive terrain, which favoured the North who had greater resources and organisation.  If however the Confederacy had attempted to defend the West then this would of left the most important industrial state Virginia open to attack.  The fact that the South decided to concentrate its efforts on the most important states and not the west probably helped the South to survive against the North for the four years it did.

Overall the Southern defeat by the North was due mainly to the lack of resources.  The South with the challenge of starting a government from scratch and sustaining a war against a well established government (Union) did surprisingly well to survive for four years, against the Union.  Davis the leader of the Confederacy did sustain the Confederate cause for four years even if the aim of ultimate independence was not achieved the eventual reconstruction period did greatly consider states’ rights and the people.