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Civil War Confederacy Advantages

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Question 1: What advantages did the confederacy possess that allowed it to enjoy considerable military success in the early years of the war?

Going into a war where the odds were against them in population, industry, and capital, amazingly, the Confederacy still managed to get an upperhand in the beginning. The South had several advantages that put them in the lead; their morale was a key influence in surviving the war. The South compared the North like the British, overmatched enemies trying to revoke their rights. In addition, the South was enormous and a great land to attempt to conquer; the South took this opportunity to unify the states and “fight a defensive war” (pg. 377). Despite the morale and land, the South defeated the North when it came to leadership in generals. If the North had any decent generals in the first half of the war, the odds might have been different, but the South was able to fight due to the immense leadership skills …show more content…
In the past, bullets were round balls that were only deadly if shot one hundred feet away; on the contrary, the key breakthrough in technology was the conical bullet with grooves. “The grooves inside the rifle barrel caused the minie ball, when fired, to spiral much like a football, increasing accuracy” (pg. 384) making the new bullets deadly weapons. The new rifle could be fired from a distance of four hundred to five hundred feet with high accuracy. These new guns annihilated those without and created a bloody warpath; in addition to the new rifle, ways of the warfare changed: such as, “emphasis on destroying the enemy’s army rather than merely seizing and holding territory and a willingness to inflict suffering to civilian population” (pg. 384). The new changes of war were tactful and successful (tactics we still use today), but the results ended in cemeteries full of

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