"Engineering Victory: How Technology Won the Civil War" Topic

(Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

"Engineering Victory brings a fresh approach to the question of why the North prevailed in the Civil War. Historian Thomas F. Army, Jr., identifies strength in engineering¯not superior military strategy or industrial advantage¯as the critical determining factor in the war's outcome.

Army finds that Union soldiers were able to apply scientific ingenuity and innovation to complex problems in a way that Confederate soldiers simply could not match. Skilled Free State engineers who were trained during the antebellum period benefited from basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices, and a culture that encouraged learning and innovation. During the war, their rapid construction and repair of roads, railways, and bridges allowed Northern troops to pass quickly through the forbidding terrain of the South as retreating and maneuvering Confederates struggled to cut supply lines and stop the Yankees from pressing any advantage.

By presenting detailed case studies from both theaters of the war, Army clearly demonstrates how the soldiers' education, training, and talents spelled the difference between success and failure, victory and defeat. He also reveals massive logistical operations as critical in determining the war's outcome."

See here
link

Amicalement
Armand

I am slightly skeptical of this claim…

should be how the Scots won the ACEW….or is it the Irish? or maybe potatoes…..

There may have been some advantages but it was not the critical issue. The bridge shown in the picture was a modular bridge that was designed and pre built to replace bridges that were destroyed. The bridge was destroyed in a Southern cavalry raid that at the time the Northern cavalry could not stop. As the war continued the Northern cavalry improved and the southern advantage slipped away and such raids stopped.

The south had many factors stacked against it and had about a 2 year window to win the war or it would be defeated.

Certainly the Union's overwhelming advantage in industrial capacity allowed for doing things like building modular bridges and replacing rails (a constant problem for the Confederates). I would guess the generally better education system in the north helped a little, but I would hardly think that was decisive.

Of course, at least in the case of the railroads for the Union, it helped having Hermann Haupt, a very skilled and competent railroad man, running things. Had more to do with his organizational skills than the raw technology.

As for the bridge on the cover, a small correction: That's the reconstructed bridge over Potomac Creek. The original bridge was burned by the retreating Confederates in May 1862. Haupt supervised infantrymen drawn from the Army of the Rappahannock in harvesting two million board feet of local lumber to construct the bridge in 9 days. The bridge would be burned and rebuilt 4 times during the war.

Union commissary was able to usually keep their troops supplied deep into Confederate territory while Confederate commissary often was taxed keeping their troops supplied in their own territory. When Johnson fell back from Manassas a huge supply dump was destroyed. Likewise when Bragg fled Missionary ridge and Lee from Richmond. In the latter two cases troops a few miles away from the dumps had been on half rations. Some of it was the lack of spare parts, but not all of it.

Bragg's siege of Chattanooga saw the besiegers starving as badly as the besieged. Hood's siege of Nashville saw the garrison eating much better than the besiegers.

The problem with logistics for the Confederacy was not one of quantity or quality of goods. It was transportation.

As the war went on, the problem was exacerbated by a lack of sufficient wagons and draft animals to move goods from railway depots to where the troops were.

A read through "The Wartime Papers of R.E. Lee" will dispel many of the myths about confederate supply issues.

One example: the train that evacuated Jefferson Davis' family from Richmond broke down in an area that had seen Union cavalry raids. It took 12 hours to fix the engine.

Further, both Longstreet's corps and Hooker's Potomac units were sent west went without wagons and horses. Both were tied to the rail lines as a result, until they managed to scrape up wagons and teams.