War as a catalyst for technological innovation

¶ … Civil War: Destructive & Bloody

The Civil War was not the "Mother of Inventions"

When historians and other interested researchers analyze the Civil War, there is little to be found in terms of great advancements or innovations, either technological or theoretical. What one does discover even in a brief review of the "War Between the States" is human carnage, bloody battlefields, broken hearts, families torn apart, burned cities, wasted lives and political hatred. And all that waste, rage and killing resulted from the inability of two regions of a new country to come to a compromise over two important issues: a) Should the evil institution of slavery (human bondage) be allowed to continue? And b), do individual states within the union have the right to adopt their own moral and political policies even if those policies radically depart from the U.S. Constitution?

This paper will review the Civil War, including one of the most famous and indeed the bloodiest battle in the War. The paper will also provide pertinent facts and statistics that reveal the true nature of this ugly confrontation between the North and the South.

LITERATURE REVIEW: How many men fought in the Civil War? According to author James M. McPherson (McPherson 306), although "estimates of the number of men who fought for the Confederacy are based on fragmentary" information, it is believed that somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 men fought for the South, while it is "generally accepted" that some 2,100,000 troops fought for the North (McPherson 306). That means over two million families in the North and possibly 800,000 families from the south were affected - at the very least through emotional distress; at the worst, through the painful death of a loved one.

On the subject of possible innovations, inventions, and military contrasts between the North and South, McPherson (316) explains that though the Confederate army tried to institute "ingenuity and innovations" in its naval strategies, the South's navy "...could never overcome Union supremacy on the high seas or along the coasts and rivers of the South" (McPherson 316). There were also attitude problems that led to the South's defeat.

In southern eyes the North was a nation of shopkeepers," McPherson writes on page 316. "It mattered not that the Union's industrial capacity was many times greater than the Confederacy's," McPherson continues. In fact, "southern boys" were "expecting a short and glorious war" (317), and they "rushed to join the colors before the fun was over," McPherson explains. As history shows, there was nothing "fun" about the bloodbath that was to come.

Another miscalculation on the part of the South that contributed to the South losing the war, according to author Potter was the fact that the Confederacy opted for a defensive strategy "rather than take any initiative against the North" (Potter 120). First, the South believed that the citizens up North were "so badly divided" that they would "not support a war of invasion against the South," Potter explains on page 120. There were solid reasons for the South to take a defensive position (it is "less costly" and "an army loses fewer troops defending a position" rather than attacking one, Potter continues on page 120).

Still, notwithstanding the possible tactical advantages involved when taking a defensive position, Potter explains on page 122 that the South was, in fact, confining itself to "preventing the Union from winning," rather than going after the Union to defeat it. And when the South did advance and take the war to the North, in places like Gettysburg, it often backfired on the South.

What was the war's bloodiest day? Was it Gettysburg? No. It occurred in September, 1862, at Antietam Creek in Maryland, when 22,700 soldiers died. "[General] Lee "hoped to win decisively...but the Union army prevailed."

Meantime, the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1 through July 3, 1863, was the bloodiest battle of the war. It was the "most famous and most important Civil War Battle... [General Lee] believed his own [rebel] army was invincible..." Potter asserts. But in fact the Confederates suffered an estimated 28,000 casualties (out of 75,000 men in battle) and the Union lost 23,000 out of 88,000 - albeit, the Union won the battle. Doing the math one comes up with around 51,000 deaths on that blood-drenched, corpse-cluttered battlefield.

On July 1 and July 2, 1863, the Confederate army had gotten the best of the fighting, but Friday, July 3, 1863, would be another day, and would end quite differently.

In the book, Pickett's Charge - the Last Attack at Gettysburg, by Earl J. Hess, readers are given an insider look at how the final and decisive battles took place. In Chapter 1, "The Last Attack at Gettysburg," Lt. Frank a. Haskell wakes up after four hours' sleep and hears the "popping of skirmish fire," letting everyone alive know that "another day of bloodshed was needed to decide a winner and perhaps to settle the fate of the nation."

Brig. Gen. John Gibbon was the man who woke Haskell up, and they rode off to see where the skirmishes were taking place; the "ravages of the conflict were still fearfully visible," Hess quotes Haskell as saying. "The scattered arms and the ground thickly dotted with the dead."

While Longstreet had hoped to avoid a "frontal assault" and instead, have his divisions sidestep the Federal left and hit them from the side, which would result in "minimal bloodshed," General Lee quickly put the squash on that strategy. He thrust his fist toward the Federal position on Cemetery Ridge, and said, "The enemy is there, and I am going to strike them," according to Hess's book.