Existing comment:
"Confederate manufacturers accomplished little short of an industrial revolution..."
-- Emory Thomas, The Confederate Nation, 1979
In 1860, William T. Sherman warned a southern friend, "In all history, no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war on a nation of mechanics. ... You are bound to fail." Nonetheless, at Appomattox, Lee's vastly outnumbered troops had, on average, seventy-five rounds of ammunition left, but no food. Ultimately, the Confederacy did not fail for lack of arms, but some of the factors that kept it from being better armed were important to the result, namely, lack of manpower and raw materials, the inadequate railway system and its disruption early in the war, and, especially, lack of cash and credit owing to the blockade of cotton exports.
Captures and imports were the most important sources of weapons, but the development of a domestic arms industry had important consequences. Richmond grew from 37,000 people in 1860 to 100,000 in 1863. Atlanta's population tripled. Not everyone approved. A southern newspaper had editorialized in 1861 that "We want no Lowells, Manchesters [or] Birminghams, for they suit not the genius of our people, our institutions, or our government." Yet, if the South wanted independence, it had to industrialize. It did, but it was too little, too late.
War was a catalyst for social change. Industry, once spurned, was encouraged. Cities, though feared as "nurseries of abolitionism," grew. Women and blacks assumed greater prominence in the work force. The parallels with the South's experience in World War II are remarkable. In both conflicts, the South was reluctant to embrace the social changes that accompanied war, but the changes came anyway. People start wars, but wars have a momentum of their own that carries people in unanticipated directions. |