Question

Economic conditions in the South were far worse than in the North. Confederate soldiers had little chance of taking up where they had left off. In some areas, every house, barn, and bridge had been destroyed. Two thirds of the South's railroad tracks had been turned into twisted heaps of scrap. The cities of Columbia, Richmond, and Atlanta had been leveled.

The war wrecked the
South's financial system.
After the war, Confederate money was worthless.
People who had loaned money to the Confederacy were never repaid.
Use the passage to answer the question.
Why would the loss of farms make it especially difficult for the Southern economy to recover?

Answer 1

the Southern economy was almost entirely dependent on the mass-production of cotton and other agricultural goods during the Antibellum (Before the War) period until the end of the American Civil War. With the loss of huge farms (plantations) and the emancipation of slaves, which comprised the majority of the labor workforce in the South, agricultural produce suffered greatly and, because of the lack of industrialization, the Southern economy collapsed. They did not have any market sector to fall back on: Southern cities were few and far between with nowhere near the industry as the North.

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