USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

[SOURCES]
Which side had a stronger navy?

(A) ** The Union

(B) The Confederacy

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -Passenger ferries, their sturdy decks built to hold horse carriages, adapted especially well to their new role as river gunboats. The Union navy grew to comprise more than six hundred ships by 1865, the largest in the world at the time, giving the North a consistent advantage in the war on the water.

Concept note-2: -In July 1861, the two armies were nearly equal in strength with less than 200, 000 soldiers on each side; however at the peak of troop strength in 1863, Union soldiers outnumbered Confederate soldiers by a ratio of 2 to 1. The size of Union forces in January 1863 totaled over 600, 000.

Concept note-3: -The Southern states had few resources compared to the North: a handful of shipyards, a small merchant marine, and no navy at all.

Concept note-4: -Since the North controlled the navy, the seas were in the hands of the Union. A blockade could suffocate the South. Still, the Confederacy was not without resources and willpower. The South could produce all the food it needed, though transporting it to soldiers and civilians was a major problem.

Concept note-5: -The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War against the United States’s Union Navy.