Harold S. Wilson, Confederate Industry: Manufacturers and Quartermasters in the Civil War. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. xxii + 412 pp. $45 (hardcover), ISBN: 1-57806-462-7.

Reviewed for EH.NET by David Surdam, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.

Harold Wilson, a professor of history at Old Dominion University, has written a well-researched treatise on Confederate quartermasters and their relations with southern manufacturers during the Civil War. In addition, Wilson devotes roughly a fifth of the text to the postwar recovery.

Historians will be impressed with the author's exhaustive use of primary materials. Economists, though, may be disappointed by the endless litany of details without much analysis. As a piece of descriptive history, Wilson's work is thorough and meticulous. Certainly there is a need for information regarding the performance of the southern economy during the war. Readers will discover how important cotton and wool were for a Victorian-era army: clothing, harnesses, bandages, flour sacks, and tents are only the most obvious uses of these products.

Wilson also does an excellent job in demonstrating that the southern economy, although dominated by the production of staple products, compared well as an industrial economy, ranking fourth behind England, the northern states, and France. The supply of raw cotton and wool augured well for the quartermaster department. Unfortunately, the migration of skilled laborers out of the Confederacy or into the army hindered the productive capability of southern manufacturers. Southern factories also depended upon imports of equipment and machinery and, during the war, upon a shaky railroad system. The Union Navy's blockade impeded the flow of replacement parts, while forcing an over-reliance upon rail transport instead of coastal and river transport. Despite these handicaps, the quartermaster department generally succeeded in equipping the soldiers with clothing and footwear, although frequent shortages did occur. However, in the absence of the disrupted antebellum trade patterns, the Confederate government could have more cheaply purchased such items. Wilson could have more fully developed the losses arising from disrupted international trade.

The book also ably demonstrates the tension between southern manufacturers and planters (although these were not mutually exclusive groups). Many of the manufacturers were northern-born men who maintained their Whig beliefs. The manufacturers were able to get the Confederate government to enact tariffs in May 1861 that closely resembled those used by the Federal government. For modern-day adherents of the belief that tariffs and not slavery caused the war, the Confederate tariffs serve as a sharp rejoinder.

The manufacturers also confronted inept Confederate policies with regard to labor, inflation, pricing, and taxation. Wilson does not necessarily believe that greater Confederate control of the economy was desirable or useful, a relative rarity among Civil War historians. Confederate policies included price controls on output based upon a fixed percentage above costs. Such a system created perverse incentives, and southern producers were not hesitant to react accordingly. In general, though, government work paid less than private work, and many producers followed the widespread practice of avoiding government work when possible. To compel their effort in producing supplies for the government, the Confederate government controlled manpower via impressing labor.

The book lauds quartermaster general Alexander Lawton's efforts to rationalize the procurement process. Lawton attempted to monopolize the purchase of wool and cotton; he succeeded, for a brief time, in getting the bulk of the raw cotton and all of the wool, but ultimately, his efforts proved futile. Lawton's predecessor, Abraham Myers, does not receive as much praise, but he was starting from scratch. Myers' detractors based their criticisms upon such personal traits as his Jewishness. Wilson also supplies the reader with such juicy gossip as the contretemps between Jefferson Davis's wife and Mrs. Myers.

Wilson discusses the profitability of manufacturing during the war years, but his lack of analysis is a real drawback. Wartime profit figures are inherently suspect due to the chronic inflation and archaic accounting system in use. Businesses did not make explicit depreciation charges against their revenues during this period. In a period of rapid inflation, such a lack could easily exaggerate profits. The dividends paid out may have been a cannibalization of capital. In fact, trying to ascertain wartime profits is likely to be an "Alice in Wonderlandesque" exercise, but I hope someone will attempt the endeavor.

During the postwar era, manufacturers scrambled to demonstrate their "loyalty" to the Union. The Confederate policies of impressments sometimes helped manufacturers convince Federal authorities that their production for the Confederate government had been based upon compulsion. Patriotism, whether to the Federal or Confederate governments, may have influenced some manufacturers during the war, but almost all were enthusiastic adherents of self-interest. The manufacturers adjusted to the new labor conditions in the South. Eventually, they created a segregated labor force whereby blacks did most of the unskilled work, while poor whites did the semi-skilled work.

The author also does not analyze how well the Confederate policies worked. He amply describes such policies, but I wish he had devoted more effort to such an analysis.

Future researchers interested in Civil War economics will need to read this book -- its surfeit of information is valuable. If and when a definitive account of the wartime southern economy is written, this book will be among the chief secondary sources.

David Surdam recently published Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War (University of South Carolina Press).