The north, being way more industrialized, mechanized, and technologically, advanced compared to the agrarian south, used this to their advantage militarily. Going into the Civil War, the Union had already been holding 90 percent of the nations' manufacturing output. This meant that they could produce much larger amounts of ammunition and weapons for the soldiers. For every 100 firearms the south produced, the north made 3,200. This statistic alone demonstrated the advantage the Union had in many of the battles.
Agriculturally, you would think the south would be easily outproducing the north due to its entire economy being based around agriculture and more specifically, cotton. Heading into the war, only about 40 percent of the north was focusing on agriculture compared to the south's 84. But, it was the north that was outperforming the south regardless. Due to the north being much more mechanized than the south, who still relied on manual labor, the north was able to produce equal or even much more supplies than the south. The Union had nearly twice the the machinery per acre, per farm worker, compared to the southern states. Due to this, the north, by the heart of the war, was agriculturally producing well over half of the crops the south was.
http://www.nps.gov/resources/story.htm?id=251
_http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war-industry-and-manufacturing
Agriculturally, you would think the south would be easily outproducing the north due to its entire economy being based around agriculture and more specifically, cotton. Heading into the war, only about 40 percent of the north was focusing on agriculture compared to the south's 84. But, it was the north that was outperforming the south regardless. Due to the north being much more mechanized than the south, who still relied on manual labor, the north was able to produce equal or even much more supplies than the south. The Union had nearly twice the the machinery per acre, per farm worker, compared to the southern states. Due to this, the north, by the heart of the war, was agriculturally producing well over half of the crops the south was.
http://www.nps.gov/resources/story.htm?id=251
_http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war-industry-and-manufacturing