Idiocy and the “Lost Cause” Myth

The most stupid element of the supposed myth of the Lost Cause is that Southerners claim they lost the war because the North had more resources. Those who demean the South with this nonsense often point to a Jubal Early statement where he said that the South “had been gradually worn down by combined agencies of numbers, steam-power, railroads, mechanism, and all the resources of physical science.” Let’s look at some numbers.

• The 1860 census puts the population of the South at roughly 9 million including 3.6 million slaves. The North’s population was almost 22 million including 700,000 slaves.
• 86% of the manufacturing plants were in the North at the start of the war.
• 92% of all industrial workers were in the North. This may be overstated as some slaves in the South were in what might be classified as industrial roles. The balance would still favor the North by a large margin.
• 72% of all railroad mileage was in the North with less land mass than the South.
• 92% of iron and steel production was in the North.
• The South did not have a navy and spent the early part of the war building one and using privateers.
• While the United States standing army was small, the South did not have one.

Some suggest that the South had some advantages like the Mississippi river joining the Gulf for transportation and some very good generals. Both certainly helped and made it a contest in the short run which is what the South only ever had. Jefferson Davis knew this and so did every other sane leader in the South. Therefore, much of the military strategy was influenced by how things would be perceived in Europe.

That the state of affairs outlined above is dismissed as a myth shows that the people who hate the South will say anything to further their agenda.