MAPS and GRAPHS
Free and Not Free
Though this was a proportionally small fraction of the South's population, its members presided over a great deal of political and economic power. They played a large part in establishing the institution by which one in seven Americans belonged to another American. (Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri were slave states but were not in the Confederacy.)
Note: There were 347,525 slave-holders in the South altogether. The figure of 310,200 for the Confederate states is an estimate. These numbers illustrate the dramatic inequality of the South's "peculiar
institution:"
Comparing Economies
The fastest rate of urbanization in US history was recorded between 1820 and 1860, most of it in the North. Transportation underwent a revolution during the early and mid-1800s. Macadam roads, canals, and then railroads crisscrossed the northeastern part of the land. In 1840, the US commanded more railroad miles than Britain; twenty years later its 37,000 miles of track equaled that of the rest of the world combined. The steamboat was introduced in 1807; by 1860 there were three thousand such vessels in service.
Industrial production in the North far exceeded that in the South: in 1860, the country could count some 128,300 industrial establishments, of which 110,000 were in states loyal to the Union. Machine-tool technology and the American manufacturing system awed visitors at the first World's Fair in London, 1851. Comparisons of Confederate and Union agricultural and industrial production illustrate the dramatic advantage held by the North in industrial capacity.
Casualties of the War
One out of every ten able-bodied northern males was killed or injured by the war; one out of every four southern males (including blacks) was killed or injured. Blacks counted for twenty percent of the Union death toll. Of the 21,000 Cherokee, most of whom fought for the Confederacy, a third died.
Note: As many as two-and-a-half million northerners enlisted in the war. However, some enlisted more than once, and many did not serve. Official Federal figures show 2,778,304 enlistments, including 178,975 blacks and 3,530 Indians (Native Americans); there were 105,963 in the Navy and Marines. Estimates for the actual Federal forces run from 1,550,000 to 2,200,000. Figures for the Confederacy also vary, from 600,000 to more than double that. Most historians agree that Union soldiers outnumbered Confederates three to one. (Statistics for the Confederacy are an estimate; statistics kept by the US (Union) army are considerably more thorough.)
The breakdown of casualty figures for each side runs as follows:
1,600,000 soldiers served in Federal forces: 642,427 casualties:
365,026 dead and 277,401 wounded. (Union army battle deaths: 110,100. Union army disease deaths: 224,580.) 750,000 served in Confederate forces: 452,026 casualties: 258,000 deaths and 194,026 wounded. (Confederate battle deaths: 94,000. Confederate disease deaths: 164,000.)
The Confederate States in the order that they seceded from the Union.
Note: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware did not secede, though they were slave states.
Population
Twenty-two million people lived in the North in twenty-three states (three million of them in border states). Nine million people lived in the eleven Confederate states. Of the nine million, three and a half million were slaves. One hundred twenty-five thousand free blacks lived in the South. There were four million slaves in the United States in 1860, ninety percent of whom were in the South, owned by 350,000 slave-holders.
The 350,000 southern slave-holders may not have been the majority of the population, but they amounted to one in four southern families. Of the slave-holding population, half owned fewer than four slaves. One-thousand-eight-hundred owned more than 100 slaves and counted as planters.
While the country as a whole was experiencing the transition to a market economy that had already seized hold of Britain, many American communities were largely self-sufficient settlements. The impact of change was not spread equally throughout the country; the resulting landscape was fertile ground for conflict. The Cotton Kingdom had brought prosperity to many in the South, at the expense, of course, of Africans and their descendants.
Two percent of the US population died in the Civil War. Only World War II claimed the lives of more Americans. The proportion of casualties to the total number of soldiers who fought was extremely high by military standards. This was in large part due to the weapons used (small arms fire accounted for more than three-quarters of the deaths) and to the high rate of disease (see below).