About 90 percent of the nation's manufacturing, and most of its banks, were in the North. The North had geographic advantages, too. It had more farms than the South to provide food for troops. Its land contained most of the country's iron, coal, copper, and gold.
In the North, the soil and climate favored smaller farmsteads rather than large plantations, which did not need slavery to operate them. Industry and manufacturing might flourished, which was fueled by European immigrant labor. Natural resources such as iron and copper were more abundant in the North than in the South.
The North produced 17 times more cotton and woolen textiles than the South, 30 times more leather goods, 20 times more pig iron, and 32 times more firearms. The North produced 3,200 firearms to every 100 produced in the South.