What was Lincoln's most serious problem during the Civil War?

Answer 1

Supply. The CSA was an agricultural society, with very little manufacturing production. While clothing was initially available, weaponry was as easy to produce. This continued all the way through.

Answer 2

The single greatest problem the Confederacy faced was its lack of manufacturing ability. In 1860, the eleven states of what became the CSA produced only $160 million in manufactured goods. Of these goods, the most important were flour, lumber, processed tobacco, cotton goods, and such commodities as turpentine. Most of these goods were exported for trade. There were almost no industrial plants.

Harper's Ferry had the only large arsenal for the manufacture of weapons in the South; it was only a few miles from the Union, which occupied it very quickly. Nearly all weapons had to be imported, but the Union had nearly all the war ships, and the coasts of the South were quickly blockaded. Once this was done, there was no way to pay for weapons, and no way to deliver them, except to run the blockade.

There were few people who were skilled at weapons manufacture, there were few iron mines or smelting operations. Very little heavy industry existed, and the expertise to develop it did not exist. Most of those companies that manufactured weapons had very poor ability to deliver them. Even to the end of the war, many Confederate soldiers were armed with personal hunting rifles or fowling pieces, and many others were armed with obsolete military weapons left over from the Mexican War. Some were carrying converted flintlocks.

The problems with manufacture went beyond metal goods. Shoes were hard to come by. Shipyards were mostly in the North. Even though cotton goods were among the most important manufactured goods the South produced, the mills that made cotton into cloth were mostly in the North.

Answer 3

One of the most vexing problems for the South during the second half of the US Civil War was not supplies. The supplies were available, the problem was transportation of these supplies. May railways in the South had been destroyed by the Union army, thereby hampering the Confederate armies. The loss of railway transportation to ship supplies to the Southern armies was a significant feature in the outcome of the war.

Answer 4

the preservation of the United States and its democratic system

Answer 5

Finding someone to command the Army.