It was the horse-reaper, the horse-rake, the
horse-thresher that enabled women and boys to work the farms
while husbands, fathers, and elder brothers were at the front.
All these causes maintained Northern farming at a high pitch of
productivity. This efficiency is implied in some of the figures
already quoted, but many others could be cited. For example, in
1859, the total production of wheat for the whole country was 173
million bushels; in 1862, the North alone produced 177 millions;
even in 1864, with over a million men under arms, it still
produced 160 million bushels.
It must be remembered that the great Northern army produced
nothing while it consumed the products of agriculture and
manufacture--food, clothing, arms, ammunition, cannon, wagons,
horses, medical stores--at a rate that might have led a poetical
person to imagine the army as a devouring dragon. Who, in the
last analysis, provided all these supplies? Who paid the
soldiers? Who supplemented their meager pay and supported their
families? The people, of course; and they did so both directly
and indirectly. In taxes and loans they paid to the Government
about three thousand millions of dollars. Their indirect
assistance was perhaps as great, though it is impossible today to
estimate with any approach to accuracy the amount either in money
or service.
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