Reply #27: Livestock super important [View All]

[Yupster]

The fact that the livestock had pretty much disappeared by the end of the war was a true disaster.

It just couldn't be replaced in just a few years. It took a generation.

Plus, in 1861, there were approx. 1 million adult white men in the south capable of serving in the army.

The Confederacy put an astounding 75 % of its eligible men in its armed forces, a truly remarkable figure.

By the end of the war, 250,000 of them or 1/4 of the entire adult white population had died and another 250,000 had been wounded. The loss of manpower alone crippled the economy so that it was 1900 before production had again reached pre-war levels.

It didn't help of course that the railroads and factories had been torn up and burnt down too.

Also, the losses were most severe among the most educated and influential. Confederate generals were expected to lead from the front and were killed in large numbers, much larger than federal generals. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had two corps commanders, Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet. Whern Jackson was killed, Lee divided his army into three corps run by Longstreet, Richard Ewell and AP Hill. Longstreet was seriously wounded in 1864, Ewell had a leg amputated before he was even promoted, and Hill was killed in 1865.