Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/729

 1860-5] The Civil War and its results. 697 bushels of wheat in 1859, produced 20,000,000 in 1863, although 124,000 of her sons (one-tenth of the total population of 1860) were in the Union ranks. Despite the great demand for food-products to supply the army, the exports of wheat and provisions increased even more than their production. The average export of wheat for 1863 and 1864 was 33,000,000 bushels compared with a maximum export of 27,000,000 in any year before the war. The demands for products were such, that despite the burdens of taxation and the disorganisation of the finances, many new industries were established on a firm basis. Notwithstanding the fact that prices were high and domestic consumption greatly curtailed, the period was not one of real suffering in the North. The quickness with which industry recovered after the war is equally remarkable. Few now recall what grave dangers lurked in the problem of disbanding 1,000,000 soldiers, and turning them at once into paths of peaceful industry ; and yet the enthusiasm with which the country took up arms for the defence of union is not more inspiring than the dignity with which she laid down her arms, and sent " all her handmaid armies back to spin." That such a sudden addition to the ranks of labour could be made at the very time when the government stopped its own extraordinary purchases, without a serious disorganisation of business, seems indeed surprising ; and yet the exhaustion of supplies was such that even a lack of capital and a crippled purchasing power were not serious obstacles to profitable employment. The large disbursements by the government in the way of arrears added a temporary spur to the demand, while what had been the weakness of the South its dependence on a single crop now proved its chief strength in the moment of need. Stricken to a point of desperate poverty by the war, its salvation lay in the fact that at once an eager market was clamouring for its cotton. In the twelve months following the close of the war the exports of cotton, though less than half the quantity of the years immediately preceding the war, reached the unprecedented money value of over $200,000,000. High prices continued for seven or eight years, and counterbalanced the lower production, which did not reach the ante bellum level till 1871. The South had money to buy the goods it so sorely needed, and the North had a ready market for its surplus. These conditions were sufficient to tide over the few years of economic readjustment which ushered in the new era. For the Civil War marks a turning-point in the economic life of the country as in its political life. The question of national unity was settled once for all as a political theory, and it was to be settled even more effectively by a national economic development on a vaster scale than had yet been conceived. The removal of all barriers to inter-State commerce through the rapid extension of the railroad system, culminating in the great transcontinental lines ; the opening up of the grain States west of the Mississippi to the limits of the arable land; the utilisation of the