The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization and the State, 1861-1865 Book

An interesting though overlong look at military procurement during America's Civil War.

I got this book because I was curious how the then inchoate federal government managed to mobilize and command such vast resources during America's first industrial war. The answer is surprisingly simple: the Quartermaster's Department that did the most of the military contracting and ran (quite a few) government factories was built up long before the Civil War by the hyper-kinetic General Thomas S. Jessup, who created a high degree of espirit d'corp and hierachacal professionalism during its Mexican and early Indian War phase. In 1856 his bureau counted for almost 13% of all national expenditures outside treaties and debt (almost $7 million) and two-thirds of that went to freight transport to supply the far-flung troops around the continent. Jessup and his department almost single-handedly built up the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (PMSC, nationally chartered in 1848) into a global corporate behemoth. When Jessup died in 1861, Lincoln appointed the energetic and disciplined Montgomery Meigs to run the agency, who continued Jessup's style of management. Despite the putative industrial nature of the Civil War, the vast majority of funds went into textiles and uniforms. Meigs found himself supervising thousands of textile mills (both contracted and government-run, with a 75/25 split in total production respectively), while negotiating with the ever-increasing labor demands of women seamstresses. Seamstresses constantly lobbied to maintain inefficient or overstocked federal mills (often successfully, like in Saint Louis) and to expand federally run arsenals and increase wages (like at the Schuylkill Arsenal in Philadelphia). Many even called for an end to all contracting and universal government management.

Some of the political battles are still instructive. For instance, the outcry by small farmers against "large" horse and mule dealers led the War Department in 1864 to change its regulations so that open-market sales of individual horses and mules were encouraged. They even appointed a new "horse procurement chief" to encourage purchases from small farmers. This is much like the World War II "Smaller War Plants Corporation" encouraged by Bank of America president Amadeo Giannini which expanded military contracts to smaller firms.

The details in this book often become excessive, but it helps one understand this essential but neglected aspect of America's most studied war.