DK - The American Civil War

The Sinews of War

Both the Union and the Confederacy had to build the bureaucratic and physical infrastructure necessary

for waging a large industrial war in North America. Both proved successful, largely due to the work of

two veterans of the prewar U.S. Army, Montgomery Meigs for the North and Josiah Gorgas for the South.

SECESSION TRIGGERS WAR 1861

W

hen the war began, the North

had clear economic and

industrial advantages over

the South. Yet in spite—or perhaps

because—of this, the Union had at first

an astonishing capacity for undermining

its position through self-inflicted

mistakes. Alongside this, the North

also faced the logistical

difficulties of supplying armies

of invasion in hostile territory.

The North’s faltering start

One of the North’s first challenges to

efficient mobilization was Lincoln’s

choice of secretary of war—Simon

Cameron, a veteran of the seedy side of

prewar politics. Appointed for political

reasons, Cameron presided over a War

Department rife with corruption and

profiteering. In the words of a

Congressional investigating committee,

Cameron’s poor judgment led to “a

system of public policy [that] must lead

inevitably to personal favoritism at the

public expense, the corruption of public

morals, and a ruinous profligacy in the

expenditure of public treasure.” Things

improved after January 1862, when

BEFORE

Thanks to reforms overseen by Senator
John C. Calhoun—President James
Monroe’s secretary of war from 1817 to
1825 ❮❮ 20–21—the prewar U.S. Army
was the most sophisticated bureaucratic
organization in mid-19th-century America.

READY FOR SMALL-SCALE WAR
Despite a primitive transportation infrastructure
and a penny-pinching Congress, the prewar
army supplied and equipped troops across a
continent-wide frontier. Arms were stockpiled in
federal and state arsenals, such as Harpers
Ferry ❮❮ 34–35. Shortages of weapons
occurred on both sides at the start of the Civil
War because stocks were never intended
to supply such huge numbers of soldiers.

Montgomery Cunningham Meigs
Southern-born Meigs had served in the U.S. Army
since 1836. Arlington National Cemetery, established
after the Civil War, was his brainchild.

Lincoln replaced Cameron with former

Attorney General Edwin Stanton, who

brought much needed energy, efficiency,

and honesty to the War Department.

Bullet mold and rifleman’s tools

When ammunition ran out, blacksmiths or the soldiers

themselves had to melt lead to make bullets on the

spot, often collecting used rounds from the battlefield.

Warfare by rail

The “General Haupt” was a specially built wood-burning

military locomotive. It was named after Herman Haupt,

the engineer who headed the Union’s bureau for

constructing and running military railroads.

Montgomery Meigs, the other major

figure in managing the North’s

resources, was a U.S. Army officer who

became head of the Quartermaster

Bureau in May 1861, after his

predecessor, Joseph E. Johnston,

left to join the

Confederacy.

Meigs’s bureau

supplied the armies with material,

other than weapons and food, which

included the infrastructure necessary

to transport these supplies. During the

course of the war, Meigs oversaw an

expenditure of $1.5 billion, nearly half

the Union’s wartime appropriations.

Supplying the South

While the Confederacy did not face the

challenges associated with supplying

armies of invasion across vast distances,

it began the conflict with little of the

industrial capacity needed for waging

war. When Josiah Gorgas—another

prewar U.S. Army officer and a veteran

of the War with Mexico—became head

of the crucial Ordnance Bureau, he

could count only on the Tredegar Iron

Works in Richmond, Virginia, to

produce heavy ordnance. There were

two small arsenals at Richmond and

Fayetteville, North Carolina, for the

production of small arms.

With astonishing ingenuity, Gorgas

found ways around these difficulties,

including blockade running, domestic

scavenging, and simple improvisation.

During the war’s first year, while the

Union blockade on the South remained

relatively porous, he purchased much

of the new nation’s needs in Europe.

At home, in his search for the raw

materials for ordnance production,

Gorgas tapped resources as diverse as

limestone caves in the Appalachians,

chamberpots, stills, church bells, and

weapons discarded on the battlefield.

The men responsible for feeding and

“Upon the ... performance of the

duties of Quartermaster, an army

depends for its ability to move.”

MONTGOMERY MEIGS, ANNUAL REPORT TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR, 1862

Brass grip

Clamp to

hold mold

closed

Wrench for adjusting

percussion caps

Screws

for removing

rounds jammed

in rifle barrels

Cup to create

hollow base

in bullet

Rifle-cleaning

tool

Josiah Gorgas, a native of Pennsylvania,

was not a Southerner, but he had married

the daughter of a former governor of

Alabama. These connections helped lead

him to choose the Confederacy.