It is difficult to describe the convergence that led to the Civil War without understanding the background. When they wanted to build the Erie Canal in New York in 1817 there were no engineers in the US with engineering degrees. The closest to this was the Army Corps of Engineers (based at West Point) which had been established by Jefferson just elven years earlier in 1806. The Erie project leader, Benjamin Wright, had worked under a British engineer and was familiar with surveying, and building roads and bridges. However, there was still not enough expertise, so Canvass White was sent to England to study their canal system.
With this deficiency made clear, West Point established an engineering degree that same year, 1817. The former superintendent and professor of engineers at West Point then started the Norwich school in Vermont which established its engineering degree in 1819. And, the man who advised the Erie Canal project on geology became the first professor at Rennselaer in New York which began offering engineering degrees in 1825.
There was a need for locomotives so people began trying to build them. However, none of the early locomotives such as the Tom Thumb, the Atlantic, or the Dewitt Clinton was comparable to the John Bull which was brought over from England in 1831. However, the Norris company demonstrated pulling power with their 4-2-0 locomotive up a grade in 1835 and 1836. By 1841 they were able to sell a locomotive to the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway in England. So we could look at the 4-2-0 Norris locomotive as proof of engineering in the US.
The original zone of technology was heavily concentrated at Philadelphia. By 1860, Pennsylvania still accounted for half the manufacturing in the US, but technology had definitely spread. For example, Ohio by itself produced more manufacturing than Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee combined. And, it had spread farther west. The proof of this was that in 1861, the Union had no trouble going to James Eads in St. Louis and contracting the construction of seven City Class iron-clads. These were built from scratch in just five months. If the Civil War had begun in 1831 instead of 1861, the south would have been much closer in terms of technology. However, by 1852, the modern, American type 4-4-0 locomotive was introduced and rapidly adopted by 1855. This would be the dominant type for the next 25 years. It wasn't just technology though; it was also infrastructure. In 1840, a ton of coal cost $8-$10. By 1862, it cost 75 cents a ton. In contrast, the Confederacy relied on wood for its locomotives. In 1860, the North manufactured 97% of firearms, 96% of locomotives, 95% of rails, 94% of cloth, 93% of pig iron, 95% of iron products, and over 90% of boots and shoes in the US.
From 1843 to 1860 the price of slaves had tripled in the south to an average of $800. As a comparison, you could buy a house for $400. I've read some rather funny and distorted conclusions from this. If you do a simple multiplication: $800 x 3.5 million slaves = $2.8 billion. One author claimed that this was more value than all the factories and equipment in the north. This is not really accurate. The value of a slave is free labor; they don't replace a rolling mill or loom or blast furnace. The rapid increase in the demand for slaves made them seem much more valuable. In other words, if there had been such a thing as slavery stock in 1860 then your shares were worth three times as much as in 1843. You were wealthy on paper. However, what was not generally understood was that the rise in the price of slaves meant that slavery was losing advantage compared to paid labor. Also, not understood was that technology was advancing so quickly that having 39% of your labor force uneducated was not viable for sustained growth. This was clearly not understood with 87% of the economy of the south based on agriculture versus 40% of the economy in the rest of the country.
Income was more heavily concentrated in the top across the south. In the north roughly 31% of income went to the top 10% while 15% went to the bottom 40%. In the south, roughly 45% went to the top 10% and only 8% went to the bottom 40%. If you were in the top 10% in the south you had no reason to want anything to change. You were concerned that you had imported silk for your daughter's dress for her next party and that your wife had a porcelain or silver tea set. You were concerned that your son was going to a good private school and that you had a stable of good horses. You made money from land and slaves, from tobacco and cotton just as your grandfather had. You had no understanding in 1860 that the Bessemer process and Mushet steel would be perfected in the next few years and that by 1870 the US would more than triple its iron production. You had no grasp that the American 4-4-0 locomotive less than a decade old would be obsolete in another generation and locomotives would be twice that size.
However, it would not be fair to blame this all on the wealthy southerners. The working class people didn't mind if there were no bridges. If the train tracks ended at a river, that just meant more work for people to unload the train and load the ferry or riverboat. Towns kept tracks from passing completely through for the same reason: jobs unloading and driving wagons to another train. If passengers had to wait for another train to show up that only meant they had time to eat at a restaurant or get a room for the night. No one stopped to think that a labor intensive economy would fall apart with labor shortages during wartime. And who could have imagined that in 1863 when southerners, desperate for metal, were melting down church bells to make canons that northern shipyards would have enough spare iron, labor, and yard capacity to build an iron-clad for Italy.
