GDG- Re: Confederate supply

[Biggsk at aol.com]

Margaret writes:

>>>And, of course, while the Confederates managed to come to  produce quality 
powder at Augusta, they never did solve their problem  with producing 
reliable and accurate fuses.  
There is a new book on the massive (two miles long) Augusta Powder Works  and 
its genius George Washington Rains.  Their powder quality was second to  none 
and the mills worked a five day, all daylight production schedule once it  
was fully up and running.  The complex covered two miles along the canal  and 
Savannah River, with a group of separate buildings.  This was done for  
explosion protection purposes; instead of one big building that would blow up  with an 
accident, only a small building would do so (and did) and not take  out the 
whole facility.  All that remains today is the main chimney.
 
Fuses were indeed a problem.  I think it was History Channel that did  a 
program last year about the fuses made in Charleston, SC's arsenal and sent to  VA 
for Lee's army prior to Gettysburg that proved defective in the  campaign.
 

The  Confederates did a formidable job in overcoming their deficits in  
manufacturing during the Civil War, but wartime is not the best time to  try to 
acquire this capacity.
It is always better to have this capacity before a war, but throughout  
history, almost no nation has gone to war that ended the war with the same level  
of industrial capacity and investment.  Win or lose, this was always much  
larger at the war's conclusion.  The South had solid industry to base a war  
machine upon, but it was not until that war and massive Confederate government  
contracts that the industrial capacity was greatly expanded.  If an  industrial 
census could have been taken in 1864 it would have shown a huge  growth in the 
South's capacity and this was entirely due to the war.  If  this growth had 
not happened it would have been a very short war!
 
The same thing for the US before World War 2.  Our industries began  making 
more war materiel in 1940 for the Lend-Lease thanks to FDR's vision  (after 
taxing the crud out of them prior to this time forcing industrial  stagnation) 
that war was imminent.  When war began for the US, the  industrial might of 
America grew to heights which it had never seen before with  the commitment to 
total war manufacturing.  Like the South after the Civil  War, it was this huge 
industrial growth that would lead to the greatest  prosperity the nation had 
ever seen
 
>>>  There were problems in both general manpower and  in skilled craftsmen 
(I think of the Union victory, in part, as that of the  "greasy mechanics" so 
maligned by antebellum pro-slavery  leaders).>>>
 
Yes there were and this was somewhat addressed by a skilled worker's  draft 
exemption, but men were often hauled into the army anyway with needed  skills.  
A nation at total war always has to try and find the balance  between men at 
labor making things for the war and men to fight it.  Both  sides in the Civil 
War, but the South in particular, employed huge numbers of  women for the 
first time in American history (sorry Rosie the Riveter!).   These women rolled 
cartridges; sewed uniforms, tents, shoes and flags; made  medical supplies and 
much more, some of it in a home-based cottage  industry.  In November, 1862, 
the Richmond QM Depot had over 2000 women in  its employ.  Atlanta's QM depot 
had over 3000. etc.  With this came  massive migration to the cities for work - 
and this would then create a labor  shortage of sorts in the agricultural 
sector in terms of smaller farms that had  very few, or no slaves.  
 
Britain in World War 2 had reached the bottom of its manpower barrel by  the 
end of 1942 (thanks largely to massive losses on World War 1 where they lost  
the equivalent of an entire generation of men) - and by late 1944, they were  
actually disbanding divisions and sending the men home to save whatever was  
left.  Within this they also had to keep their industrial base  going.
 
Your belief in the Union "greasy mechanics" is well-founded, as would be  all 
of our beliefs in the Rosies that helped build over 50,000 Sherman tanks,  
thousands of fighters and bombers and hundreds of warships and supply ships with 
 which we basically buried Japan and Germany! (Somewhat mysteriously, Germany 
 never did reach full industrial capacity in the war, which actually did 
increase  in spite of Allied strategic bombing.)
 
This coincides with the statement that "amateurs look at war in terms of  
tactics and strategy while professionals look at war in terms of  logistics."  
The side with the best logistics usually does win.
 
Greg Biggs







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