20. The Union soldier was more likely to be a trained artisan than his Southern counterpart
In 1861 the number of factories in the Northern states exceeded those of the South by a factor of ten. While the majority of the troops in both armies came from farms, the Union army nonetheless held a core of trained manufacturers and mechanics which the South lacked for the most part. They provided a technical background which gave the Union Army an advantage in the field, and a superiority in the maintenance of equipment and facilities which the Southerners lacked throughout the war. The US Army’s Corps of Engineers (of which Robert E. Lee had once been an officer) outperformed their Southern counterparts, since the South lacked enough trained mechanics to carry out their projects.