For a very brief time after the civil war, the us had the largest navy in the world, but I was wondering how their army would compare
For a very brief time after the civil war, the us had the largest navy in the world
If I could also address this point too as the other posts have linked to a few of the repeated treatments of the topic of the land forces.
Back to the point, even at its peak the USN was woefully under prepared to fight one of the top tier European fleets, say Britain or France. The massive expansion of US hull numbers was by and large accounted for by blockade ships, often poorly armed and constructed to below true warship standards. Meant only to add numbers to the blockade line and stop smugglers everything from coastal haulers to pleasure yachts were also bought for the Navy and sent South with a crew. Many of the others were coastal and river craft with limited usefulness in any sort of open water.
While the USN did have a gaggle of Monitors and a few larger ironclads they were all dwarfed by European peers. The 2 largest ironclads the US put into service during the war were the Monitor Dictator and ironclad USS New Ironsides. Both clocking in around 4,000 tons. HMS Warrior and her sister Black Prince were both topping 9000 tons by comparison! And while later classes were of a more economic size they were still all larger than those in American service.
While there is rather convincing evidence run down IIRC correctly by /u/Jschooltiger as to just how much more effective contemporary British naval cannons like the 68pdr vs the Dahlgren guns so common in US service.
Suffice to say that if Britain had sought to life the Union Blockade there was little that could have been done to stop it.
You may find these previous threads useful. User /u/vonadler has touched on basically this subject several times, with a fair amount of back and forth in both threads.
EDIT: Tried to fix user tagging.
A lot of past responses to this question have focused on the equipment and training of the armies in question (presumably because it is easier to make an objective comparison). How did Union command, tactics and particularly strategy compare with their European counterparts?