kyrocketing at this time, and the sudden profusion of factory positions that needed to be filled was not a big problem (See Appendices and Randall and Donald 1-2). The immigrants, who were escaping anything from the Irish Potato Famine to British oppression, were willing to work for almost anything and withstand inhuman factory conditions (Jones). Although this exploitation was extremely cruel and unfair to the immigrants, Northern businessmen profited immensely from it (Brinkley et al. 264) By the beginning of war in 1860, the Union, from an economical standpoint, stood like a towering giant over the stagnant Southern agrarian society. Of the over 128,000 industrial firms in the nation at this time, the Confederacy held only 18,026. New England alone topped the figure with over 19,000, and so did Pennsylvania 21,000 and New York with 23,000 (Paludan 105). The total value of goods manufactured in the state of New York alone was over four times that of the entire Confederacy. The Northern states produced 96 percent of the locomotives in the country, and, as for firearms, more of them were made in one Connecticut county than in all the Southern factories combined ("Civil War," Encyclopedia Americana). The Confederacy had made one fatal mistake: believing that its thriving cotton industry alone would be enough to sustain itself throughout the war. Southerners saw no need to venture into the uncharted industrial territories when good money could be made with cotton. What they failed to realize was that the cotton boom had done more for the North than it had done for the South. Southerners could grow vast amounts of cotton, but due to the lack of mills, they could do nothing with it. Consequently, the cotton was sold to the Northerners who would use it in their factories to produce wools and linens, which were in turn sold back to the South. This cycle stimulated industrial growth in the Union and stagnated it in the Confederate states (Catt...
