1.]

Transport was done by road, rail, sea, and inland waters. Other
things being equal, a hundred tons could be moved by water as easily
as ten by rail or one by road. Now, the North not only enjoyed
enormous advantages in sea-power, both mercantile and naval, but
in road, rail, canal, and river transport too. The road transport
that affected both sides most was chiefly in the South, because most
maneuvering took place there. "Have you been through Virginia?--Yes,
in several places" is a witticism that might be applied to many
another State where muddy sloughs abounded. In horses, mules, and
vehicles the richer North wore out the poorer and blockaded South.
Both sides sent troops, munitions, and supplies by rail whenever
they could; and here, as a glance at the map will show, the North
greatly surpassed the South in mileage, strategic disposition,
and every other way.

The South had only one through line from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi; and this ran across that Northern salient which threatened
the South from the southwestern Alleghanies. The other rails all had
the strategic defect of not being convenient for rapid concentration
by land; for most of the Southern rails were laid with a view to
getting surplus cotton and tobacco overseas. The strategic gap
at Petersburg was due to a very different cause; for there, in
order to keep its local transfers, the town refused to let the most
important Virginian lines connect.

Taking sea-power in its fullest sense, to include all naval and
mercantile parts on both salt and fresh water, we can quite understand
how it helped the nautical North to get the strangle-hold on the
landsman's South. The great bulk of the whole external trade of
the South was done by shipping. But, though the South was strong in
exportable goods, it was very weak in ships. It owned comparatively
few of the vessels that carried its rice, cotton, and tobacco crops
to market and brought back made goods in return. Yankees, Britishers,
and Bluenoses (as Nova Scotian craft were called) did most of the
oversea transportation.

Moreover, the North was vastly stronger than the South on all the
inland waters that were not "Secesh" from end to end. The map shows
how Northern sea-power could not only divide the South in two but
almost enisle the eastern part as well. Holding the Mississippi
would effect the division, while holding the Ohio would make the
eastern part a peninsula, with the upper end of th