Great Power.

This is coolbert:

During the American Civil War [1861-1865], the United
States could have been said to enter the ranks of the

world's great powers.

That correct combination of population, resources, industry, political

control, military strength, ambition, organization, etc., that allowed a
particular nation-state to be counted as a first rate power.

Not too many countries around the world have been able to attain this rank. In the

nineteenth century, perhaps only Britain, France, Germany, and maybe
Austro-Hungary and Russian could be counted as great powers.

Now entered the United States.

Many authorities have remarked that the American Civil War should be
recognized as the first modern war.

Methods of industrial mass production enabled the armies of at least the North

to be lavishly equipped with the latest military equipment in abundance.

Modern technology was widely utilized during the war, again, especially by the Union side.

The telegraph, railroad, steamship, all allowed for coordinated attacks by Union

armies over large distances, by commanders located remotely from the battlefields.

Everything about this war points to an emerging world power that was the
United States.

Battles were now fought with forces that in size rivaled the armies of the old world

[prior to this the U.S. Army was a very small size force in comparison to other armies

of the world, small in peace time and relatively small in war time too]. As was

mentioned in a prior blog entry, casualties at Shiloh equaled those of the combatants at Waterloo.

And there were twenty more battles to follow in subsequent years of equal or

greater size. More ammunition was expended at Gettysburg alone than in all the
battles of the Napoleonic era put together!!

American military commanders proved themselves to be equals of their

counter-parts throughout the world when it came to invading the territory

of your enemy [Northern armies invading the South], pursuing the enemy,

and maneuvering as part of simultaneous strategy over large distances

[using telegraphy to do so].

The civilian political leadership [especially again of the North] proved itself
very able in their ability to mobilize the society for war and direct a
massive war effort that lasted for the four years of the war.

At the end of the American Civil War, the U.S. Army reverted to the small
size it had prior to the outbreak of the war. The entire American Indian
fighting army after the Civil War numbered no more than 10,000 troops! This
was a small standing army by European standards. But it was recognized by
the other world powers that the U.S., if it needed to, could mobilize and
put into the field, large, lavishly equipped armies commanded by generals
that knew what to do.

Economically, the U.S. remained in the ranks of the world economic powers.
Indeed, fortunes made during the American Civil War enabled the "Gilded
Age" to transpire. Fortunes made by such persons as John D. Rockefeller were
instrumental to the U.S. economy expanding to the point that by 1880 the
U.S. was producing more steel than the British, the previous world leaders
in this category. After the American Civil War, the U.S. economy became the

world leader within several decades.

coolbert.