Which side north or south had a better railroad system?
The industrialized Union possessed an enormous advantage over the Confederacy — they had 20,000 miles of railroad track, more than double the Confederacy's 9,000 miles.
People Also Ask
Southern railroads west of the Mississippi were isolated, disconnected, and differed widely in gauge. Several of the Northern railroads, in contrast, were complex networks in themselves, and many cities were served by more than one. The fact that most used the same gauge made transfer even easier.
The South had always been less enthusiastic about the railroad industry than the North; its citizens preferred an agrarian living and left the mechanical jobs to men from the Northern states. The railroads existed, they believed, solely to get cotton to the ports.
Most of the railroad lines in the country were located in the North and the Middle West. This made it possible for the North to move more men and supplies around almost at will, and to transport food from he mid-western farm lands to workers in the eastern cities and the armed forces in the field.
The North also had more money, more factories, more horses, more railroads, and more farmland. On paper, these advantages made the United States much more powerful than the Confederate States. However, the Confederates were fighting defensively on territory that they knew well.
The North had a greater industrial advantage. The Confederacy had only one-ninth the industrial capacity of the Union. In 1860, the North manufactured 97% of the country firearms, 96% of its railroads, 94% of it cloth, 93% of its pig iron and over 90% of its boots and shoes.
Needless to say, slave owners did not appreciate the Underground Railroad. Although they disliked Abolitionist talk and literature, the railroad was far worse. To them, these were simple cases of stolen property. Slave catchers often traveled to the North to try to recapture freed slaves.
The North, however, consisted mostly of large urban cities and did not have a great need for slave labor. They also wanted their tax dollars spent on things like new roads, canals and railroads. However, the South was more rural, so they did not have the need for such infrastructure.