Entrepot: Government Imports into the Confederate States
In the 500s B.C. Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu observed that “the line between disorder and order lies in logistics.” Too often Civil War historians forget that axiom. While it may be more entertaining to research, write and read about campaigns and battles, it is sometimes forgotten that the success of campaigns and battles often hinges on an army’s ability to properly supply its troops. When the Civil War began, both Union and Confederate governments confronted major difficulties as they tried to clothe, equip and feed their armies. Undoubtedly the Confederate government had the bigger hurdle to overcome because it had no existing infrastructure on which it could construct its logistical operations. Only occasionally over the last half century have a handful of historians attempted to address how the Confederacy overcame its supply problems and managed to wage war for four years. While each previously published work sharpened the picture a bit more, C.L. Webster’s most recent study provides a highly detailed and laboriously researched examination of Confederate imports from European markets — namely Great Britain. Webster, a lawyer from Texas whose passion for this subject stemmed from his “interest in British knapsacks,” has done an exhaustive amount of primary research to provide a clear image of what exactly the Confederacy imported and how it made its way to needy troops in the field. The author divides his study into six main chapters that examine Great Britain’s role as the “workshop of the world,” and the handling of imports into Savannah, Wilmington, Charleston, Mobile and the beleaguered Trans-Mississippi. Webster cogently describes the operations of Confederate agents, the various contracts negotiated with firms such as S. Isaac, Campbell & Co. and Peter Tait & Co., espionage activities of the U.S. Consul’s English detectives, and the successes or failures of ships to move goods from the European market to Confederate soldiers. In addition to discussing the business of importing war materiel into the Confederacy, Webster provides ample biographical information about some of the Confederacy’s unsung heroes, such as Confederate purchasing agent Capt. Caleb Huse and Lt. Henry Myers, Chief of Ordnance for the Department of the Gulf. Beyond the book’s initial purpose, the author’s well-crafted study also provides an examination of the negative consequences of importation. For example, when the ship Kate docked in Wilmington, N.C., in August 1862, it not only brought useful supplies, but also yellow fever. The epidemic killed more than 600 of Wilmington’s 2,500 people. After Webster’s initial six chapters, he includes six lengthy appendices — which could almost stand alone as a reference volume — that give a detailed accounting of various military supplies imported into the Confederacy, a tabulation sheet of items kept at the Richmond Arsenal Store House from July 1861 until December 1864, and the 1858 testimony of Peter Tait about the capacity of his company to rapidly produce uniforms by using sewing machines. Webster’s Entrepot: Government Imports into the Confederacy should be required reading for military historians. It also would be useful to those studying Confederate material resources or the impact of disease, which caused two-thirds of Civil War deaths. Reviewer: Jonathan A. Noyalas Jonathan A. Noyalas is assistant professor of history and director of the Center for Civil War History at Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown, Va., and the author or editor of seven books on Civil War era history.
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Illustrated, photographs, bibliography, notes, appendices, index, 388 pp., 2010, Edinborough Press,