Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tyrone Li
4/1/08
History
Rogers
First 5 paragraphs second draft
From 1861 to 1865, the Union and the Confederacy fought a civil war between the
North and South of the United States of America. Although the war was fought over slavery,
that was only one important disagreement. Even before the first settlers came to America,
there were differences between the geography and climate of the North and the South. The
two different regions developed different cultures and economies. This growth led to a
population and representation imbalance between the Union and the Confederate states.
There were deep differences between the North and the South long before the Civil War
broke out.
The Northern geography and climate was very different from the Southern one. The
colonial North stretched from Maine to Maryland, and was mostly in the Appalachian
Mountain Region. The elevation of the area averaged 5001000 feet. The Northern land was
mostly rocky and hilly with acidic soil caused by the many pine forests. There were few
easily navigable rivers because they are more rocky and fast moving in the North. The
climate was also harsher because it was affected by the higher elevation and the latitude
compared to the southern states. The North is colder and has only three to six months of
growing season a year. The precipitation, often sleet and snow, averaged around thirty to
forty inches per year. The combination of volatile terrain and the harsh climate discouraged
farming.
The colonial South stretched from Virginia to Georgia and was mostly in the Atlantic
Coastal Plains. Then, because of the scarcity of hills and mountains, the elevation averaged
less than 500 feet above sea level. The Southern land is relatively flat and it has smooth,
fertile soils. It has many navigable rivers that usually flow more smoothly than the Northern
rivers. The Southern climate is warmer because it has a lower elevation and latitude. The
growing season is six to ten months per year. Annual precipitation is an average of forty to
fifty inches and it consists mostly of rain. The space and the climate in the South was good
for agriculture.
The Northern culture began as early as with the first immigrants in Plymouth,
Massachusetts Bay. The North was very religious, with mainly puritan and a little separatist
settlers who fled from England for religious freedom. With the need to read religious texts,
almost all Northerners had been literate. Even in the early days, thirtythree percent of the
population lived in towns. The Northerners had been very loyal to their community and so
they shared their tools and ideas with one another. By the 1860s both the North and the
South had expanded to and beyond the Mississippi River. At that time, only forty percent of
the North worked on farms. The Northern farms produced enough food to trade with in
addition to sustain the country because of farmland acquired in the Great Plains. Ninety
percent of all the United State's industry was in the North, giving it an upper hand in the
government.. The North had begun to communicate with telegraphs strung all over the
country, which kept the whole upper half of the United States synchronized. Railroads
carried wheat, iron ore, and other raw materials from one side of the country to the other.
Attracted by the booming economy and running from natural disasters, many immigrants
flooded into the North in search of jobs. With this promising economy, the North traded
with countries around the world.
Although some of the settlers of the South were of the Anglican faith, most of the
Southerners had not been very religious, the South had been settled mainly for work and land
rather than religion. The South had been mostly rural with only seven percent of its
population residing in towns. The Southerners believed in social inequality and tried to
become richer than their neighbors by creating big farms. Two out of ten whites and almost
all blacks were illiterate because most Southerners had not read religious texts and blacks
were forbidden the chance to learn. After the 1860s, only ten percent of the United States
industry was in the South. Southerners still resorted to the river as a form of transportation.
Unlike the North, who built their economy around free labor, the South built their economy
around slave labor. At that time, eightyfive percent of Southerners were farmers. These
farmers mainly produced enough food to sustains themselves and they traded with England
almost exclusively.