Customer Reviews

The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization and the State, 1861-1865 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

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Who would have thought that among his other acheivements, President Lincoln produced America's first military-industrial complex? In this well researched, well written study of military procurement during the American Civil War, the author demonstrates how the US moved from a state-by-state method of equipping its troops to a nationwide system operated by military quartermasters with the expertise and integrity to manage what was the biggest enterprise of its day.

The author's rich coverage of the most interesting issues of the day - nascent labor unions, the debate between government run arsenals and private industry, the role of brokers and middlemen - pulls you into the issues of the day. Prof. Wilson's scrupulous intellectual honesty allows one to examine these subjects without 150 years of polemics. This presents the reader with the rarest of all virtues in a history: allowing him to view issues as if he were a contemporary while simultaneously giving him the advantage of observing these issues after the passions have cooled and perspective has set in.

The trust that the author thus forms with his reader is remarkable. A good example of this is found in his last chapter, when he talks about the "militarization" of the American economy. The word "militarization" has become shorthand in academic circles - even for those academics who are respected outside of the far right and far left peanut galleries - for all sorts of bad things in the economy. Prof. Wilson merely uses the word as it is meant to be used - the application, for good and bad, of military style structure in economic enterprises. The result is a true intellectual discourse with the past, not the imposition of current fashion to old events.

The author has focused mostly on the army, not the navy, but that is where the most interesting issues arose anyway. Prof. Wilson has performed miracles with an incomplete historical record, but there are many issues I would have love to have seen addressed (although the data is probably lost to history). He presents a balanced account of the virtues of the publicly owned arsenals and factories and private enterprise, but vital questions remain unanswered:

WAS the quality of good produced at the public factories equal to or better than that of private industry? He produces claims that they were, but he also shows that army quartermasters often rejected, and refused to pay for, goods from private industry, a power they did not have at government factories. This may have made a difference - possibly never recorded - between the standards of the one against the other.

He also demonstrates that workers preferred working for the government owned entities, but then in his discussion of inflation, indicates that the government owned entities began to lose their workers to private industry as prices soared. Does this mean that the privately owned economy was more responsive in paying wages to price movements than public entities? If so, that would be an interesting study in its own right.

None of these unanswered questions detract from this vital book, which should be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the Civil War, the history of business or political history.

THE BUSINESS OF CIVIL WAR: MILITARY MOBILIZATION AND THE STATE, 1861-1865 is a pick for any in-depth Civil War history holding, who will find it much more than the usual rehash of politics. Instead, American history teacher Mark Wilson provides his own structured analysis of the politics and economics of the large military supply project in the North which proved such a major influence on the war's events and progression. His research in Army and business archives alike documents this project with an eye to displaying the military economy it created and encouraged. A 'must' for any serious student of Civil War history who would go beyond the usual statistics and battle events.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I stumbled across an enthusiastic endorsement of this book by James Schmidt, (See Mr. Schmidt's May 25, 2007 Amazon review as well.), and I thought that I would take a chance on it. This book is one of the most original pieces of research on the Civil War that I have read. Previous reviewers have done an excellent job of describing this book but I enjoyed this book so much that I wanted to add my voice to the chorus.

You can hear echoes of the books discussion on the merits of public vs. private manufacturing of war materials in our current debate over the inclusion of public option in health care. When the quartermaster general warns that a strict construction of government contracting rules would lead to a procurement system that "prevailed in some monarchical governments, where great contractors, commanding millions of capital, make general contracts to furnish all supplies for the government under periodical lettings.", you can almost hear the criticism of our government's early contracts with Halliburton in the second Iraq war.

The book's discussion of the government's lack of cash which resulted in the issuance of quartermaster vouchers two to three months after final deliver of goods which could then only be exchanged for certificate of indebtedness, one year notes with a 6 percent interest rate, was a revelation to me. Only individuals and businesses with lots of capital can afford to wait that long to be paid.

Anyone that is interested in the Civil War should read this book. It is a very interesting and original read.

No, Mark Wilson didn't write the book for me...but he could have. I'm not a professional historian but I am *very* interested in (and write on) the intersection of military history (esp. the Civil War) and business history. When I saw Mark Wilson's **The Business of Civil War** in a list of "just received" in **The Civil War News** I was quite keen to get it and when I did I was not disappointed. The scholarship is fantastic - he used a wide variety of primary sources and government documents and the "Blibliographic Essay" at the end is worth the price of the book itself...it contains many dozens of leads to sources for those interested in the same subject and has already proven a boon to my research.

For my part, among the best discussions were a) the importance of labor issues (esp. women) in the clothing industry and how it was handled by gov't authorities, b) the problems contractors had in getting paid by the gov't, c) and the jealousies among some western cities that they weren't getting enough of the Federal contracting pie. I would have liked to have seen more discussion of other important supply issue -esp. medicine and medical supplies - but that's a small complaint indeed.

This is an excellent book by someone who will prove to be one of our leading business historians. Highly recommended.