Lower European Emigration Affect on ACW

One of the many reasons for Northern dominance typically listed when discussing the American Civil War is the population difference, mainly from European emigration into the Northeast. So What If in ATL there's lower emigration from the Old World to the New - possibly due to a more successful 1848, but the reasons themselves don't matter. What I'm wondering is what affect this has on the United States, on the political and economic atmosphere there, and what happens during the Civil War if;

+ there's 10% less European immigrants than IOTL
+ 25%
+ 50%
+ 75% :eek:
 
What i'm wondering is will the Civil War even happen at the same time for the same reasons. And would they be divided in north-south? Butterflies are a very big part of this.
 

elder.wyrm

Banned
Actually, probably only a million or two people would be missing from the Northern population. A lot of people, mind, but only a dent in the Northern population advantage (something like 20mil v 9mil...ITTL, 17mil v 9mil, instead).
 
Between 1850 and 1930 about 5 million Germans immigrated to the US, with the peak years being between 1881 and 1885 when a million Germans arrived, settling mostly in the Midwest. In 1850 alone half a million Germans arrived in the US. Between 1820 and 1930, 3.5 million British and 4.5 million Irish immigrated to the US. In 1850 just a few thousand shy of a million Irish immigrated to America.

European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 born in Ireland. Many Germans and Eastern Europeans could see the parallel between slavery and serfdom in the Old World.

Realize also that not only are the immigration numbers themselves important, but the children they have in America are natural born citizens, thus swelling the population even more. Without the immigrants, you don't have their children either, and considering cultural/traditional family sizes of the time that's a fairly large affect. Census data from the period reveals that for the 1.7mil immigrants recorded in 1850, there were also 2.2mil citizens born of foreign descent, mostly European. Also considering that most European immigrants arrived in the Northeast and either settled there or in the Midwest, that's a huge affect solely on the OTL Union states.

In IOTL the US population in 1850 according to Census data was 23.1 million, and by 1860 it was 31.4 million. ITTL the 1860 numbers would be closer to ~25mil (+/- 1.5mil). With 9.1 mil living in the South (including 3.5mil slaves), that means a population of only 16mil for OTL's Union states. Less than a 2-to-1 advantage.

So, how does this affect things? How does the Civil War play out differently? Is there even a Civil War? Or, if/when it does happen, does it happen later than IOTL?
 
Hey Wolf, I did some looking up, and this is what I found. Not sure if it's helpful or not...

Per http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/pdfs/total_immigrants_chart.pdf

Population immigration to the US for the years from '48 through '61 would be as follows:
'48 -226,527
'49 -297,024
'50 -369,980
'51 -379,466
'52 -371,603
'53 -368,645
'54 -427,833
'55 -200,877
'56 -200,436
'57 -251,306
'58 -123,126
'59 -121,282
'60 -153,640
'61 -91,918

This gives a total of 3,583,663

Let's cross this with Populstat's info for total US population:
'47 -21,406,000
'50 -23,191,900
'53 -27,536,000
'57 -29,037,000
'60 -31,443,300

So, immigration included, you're looking at a population increase of almost exactly 10 million. We know that of that 10 million, 3.5 million were immigrants (based on the above numbers).
Let's say we eliminate immigration all together (not taking into account children born to those first gen immigrants, for simplicity's sake:)): you're still looking at a 6.5 million increase: giving you an estimated '61 population of roughly 28 million, instead of 31.5 million.

As mentioned, the CSA has a pop of 9 million. We subtract that from the 28 million, and we're looking at a northern population of 19 million instead of OTL's 22.5 million. That's assuming 100% of OTL's population went to the northern states.
That's also if we eliminate immigration all together. It's a difference, but not a huge difference. And that margin will decrease significantly if we go by the percentages you cited above.

Then again, we might be able to see a bigger difference if we could analyze the stats on numbers of first generation immigrants in the Northern Army. If they were disproportionately represented, we might see a bigger impact. But I don't have those numbers. :eek:
 
Ok, so we're all in agreement that with (substantially) lower European emigration to the US the ACW that by 1860 or so the difference in population between the North and South is somewhere around 1.9:1, instead of OTL's 2.5:1. So... what affect this has on the United States, on the political and economic atmosphere there, and what happens during the Civil War? :D
 
A lot of the German emigrants were liberals fleeing the failed 1848 who didn't really like the Confederacy.

Assuming minimal butterflies, McClellan might do better in 1864.
 
Ok, so we're all in agreement that with (substantially) lower European emigration to the US the ACW that by 1860 or so the difference in population between the North and South is somewhere around 1.9:1, instead of OTL's 2.5:1. So... what affect this has on the United States, on the political and economic atmosphere there, and what happens during the Civil War? :D
All right then, what would have changed and what would have stayed the same?
Population wise, we're looking at roughly a 15% decrease. Now I know it's not entirely logical to equate that directly into terms of manufacturing output, but let's see anyway:

IIRC: The North controlled 93% of iron production.
Per http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Steel_industry,_history#United_States we have:
From 1875 to 1920 American steel production grew from 380,000 tons to 60 million tons annually
Let's run with that 380,000 tons just because I don't have anything better ATM.

93% of that would be 353,400 tons. The south would then logically have 26,600 tons of production. If we reduce that 353,400 by 15%, we still have a hair over 300,000 tons. That's still WAY more than the south.

Gunpowder.
Not sure if I can track down any numbers for this, but let's see.
Per
http://footguards.tripod.com/06ARTICLES/ART28_blackpowder.htm
c.1860, United States
DOMINANT SUPPLIERS TO THE UNION FORCES

The North had plenty of powder during the Civil War. The principal suppliers DuPont, Lafflin & Rand, and Hazzard made millions of dollars, which allowed them to persist in the business beyond the turn of the century. Of these DuPont, while no longer engaged in the manufacture of Black Powder, persists through today.

Nothing really revealing there, but if they had 'plenty of powder', its probably safe to assume a 15% decrease won't hurt them that much...

Artillery:
I'm certainly no historian, but you've got me reading up more and more here...

Per Wiki on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_artillery_in_the_American_Civil_War#History_and_organization

The Union Army entered the war with a strong advantage in artillery...

At the start of the war, the U.S. Army had 2,283 guns on hand, but only about 10% of these were field artillery pieces. By the end of the war, the army had 3,325 guns, of which 53% were field pieces. The army reported as "supplied to the army during the war" the following quantities: 7,892 guns, 6,335,295 artillery projectiles, 2,862,177 rounds of fixed artillery ammunition, 45,258 tons of lead metal, and 13,320 tons of gunpowder.
Ah ha! There are some numbers we can play with!
7,900 guns supplied to the army during the course of the war, with another 2,300 available at the start.
Let's reduce those supplied by our 15% = 6,715.

The south on the other hand...
The South was at a relative disadvantage to the North for deployment of artillery. The industrial North had far greater capacity for manufacturing weapons, and the Union blockade of Southern ports prevented many foreign arms from reaching the Southern armies...

The Confederate cannons built in the South often suffered from the shortage of quality metals and shoddy workmanship. Another disadvantage was the quality of ammunition. The fuses needed for detonating shells and cases were frequently inaccurate, causing premature or delayed explosions. All that, coupled with the Union gunners' initial competence and experience gained as the war progressed, led Southern forces to dread assaults on Northern positions backed up by artillery. A Southern officer observed, "The combination of Yankee artillery with Rebel infantry would make an army that could be beaten by no one."

Interesting bit of information there. Let's see what the south had to offer for artillery:
Bugger... not a whole lot...
Ok, screw that direction.

Let's just look at over all numbers of men.
Per (in this case I think, the acceptable) Wiki

South = 1,064,000
North = 2,100,000

Casualties
South = 260,000 total dead
North = 365,000 total dead

% of male 18/20 ~ 40/45 pop (not sure how reliable this is...):
North - 10%
South - 30%

Not a whole lot to work with there, but let's see what we can do.

Population of North decreased by 15%, so let's do the same here:
South = 1,064,000
North = 1,785,000

Dead:
North = 365,000
Now, and overall decrease in numbers will likely even that out: meaning a higher % of the military, but


EDIT...
Bugger, gotta run. Extract what you will.
The rest to come later! :eek:
 
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