Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

by James M. McPherson

North’s leading industry, cotton textiles, the overall manufacturing index stood 13 percent higher in 1864 for the Union states alone than for the entire country in 1860. The North had to import hundreds of thousands of rifles in the first year or two of the war; by 1864 the firearms industry was turning out more than enough rifles and artillery for the large Union army. And the northern economy churned out plenty of butter as well as guns. Despite the secession of southern states, war in the border states, and the absence of a half-million farmers in the army, Union states grew more wheat in both 1862 and 1863 than the entire country had grown in the previous record year of 1859. Despite the food needs of the army and the civilian population, the United States actually doubled its exports of wheat, corn, pork, and beef during the war to help fill the void created by crop failures in western Europe during the early 1860s.