Download Harold S. Wilson. Confederate Industry: Manufacturers and

Canada and the United States
sounds, the Albemarle and the Currituck, both of
which are shown clearly in the book's best map (pp.
6-7) of the antebellum maritime region from Cape
Fear to Knott's Island.
Cecelski's book is divided into two parts, "Working
on the Water" (four chapters), which is the strongest
and best organized section, and "The Struggle" (three
chapters, respectively, followed by an afterword),
which, because it lies outside the chronological limits
established in the first part and deals with post-Civil
War political life, seems less integrated into the overall
themes of the book, even though it details the brief life
of a local African-American abolitionist and activist,
Abraham Galloway. Circling around his subject like a
pilot traveling the maze of waterways in Albermarle
Sound, Cecelski often repeats his main arguments:
that African Americans contributed significantly to the
coastal economy, the reclamation of swamps and
marshes, the establishment of the commercial fishing
industry in North Carolina, and the construction of
canals; that the association of slaves and free persons
preserved family and tribal ties as well as supported a
vigorous abolitionist movement in fields, plantations,
and swamp hideaways; and that the proximity of
African Americans to the water encouraged strong
African cultural retentions. Thus Cecelski's nostalgic
assertion that "African Americans ... found their
hope uplifted and their lives unbounded merely by the
nearness of the sea, by working on the water, and by
the vast horizon over Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic"
(p. xx).
The movement of African-American sailors from
southern to northern ports and beyond also established strong communications links with the "cosmopolitan maritime world." Cecelski bases his often
poignant observations on first-hand accounts from
slave narratives as he strives to document, not always
persuasively, the overt and covert links between fugitive slave communities in the North Carolina marshlands and the small towns and plantations on the
mainland. This fertile site for cultural exploration had
heretofore not been investigated thoroughly. The history of the Dismal Swamp Canal project and other
canal-building ventures captures in sometimes terrifying detail the brutality of slavery while exposing the
narrow economic vision of the entrepreneurs whose
desire for profit transformed the ecosystems of the
region forever. What is even more revealing is the
slave watermen's domination of the maritime trades,
which included the transportation of shingles, turpentine, and lumber-North Carolina was the largest
supplier of building materials to the North before the
westward migrations and the advent of the railroads in
the lS40s-as well as the fishing, clamming, oystering,
and whaling industries.
Cecelski demonstrates that communications could
take place among the communities formed by labor,
but his arguments are less persuasive regarding the
content of those dialogues. The narration of work
activities is fascinating in its details and in the master-
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
527
ful description of the effort involved, while the transactions among the slaves themselves receive little
comparable attention. This study is less about "life"
along the seashore than "labor" on or near the water,
more an economic or labor history than a study of
social communities created because masters could not
supervise all the slaves who hired out their labor and
worked the waterways.
The book accomplishes its author's goal of evoking
"the broader experience of the maritime South" and
supports his argument that the experiences of AfricanAmerican bondmen in North Carolina were "in many
ways more similar to, and more in touch with, African
American life in southern ports like Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah than farm market towns some 30
miles away" from the shore (p. xix). Cecelski opens a
window on what will someday be a larger, more
comprehensive view of Atlantic maritime culture
through the words and labors of those who bore the
brunt of the work.
WILLIAM J. MAHAR
Penn State University
HAROLD S. WILSON. Confederate Industry: Manufacturers and Quartermasters in the Civil War. Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi. 2002. Pp. xxii, 412.
$45.00.
This book is an important addition to the emerging
literature on early southern industrialization. Using
extensive primary research, Harold S. Wilson simultaneously attempts to explain the perils and opportunities of engaging in industrial manufacturing in the
South during the Civil War and to explain the evolution of the system of procuring war materiel by the
Confederate government's Quartermaster Department. Although the mix of goals often obscures as
much as it reveals, the richness of the research will
make it required reading for serious students of the
U.S. South, the Civil War, and industrialization for the
foreseeable future.
Wilson convincingly demonstrates the vitality of
industry in the Confederate South. His book begins by
recounting the war of words about the nature of the
southern economy during the secession crisis, showing
that southern politicians knew that the South contained a sizeable industrial sector that could contribute
to a war for independence. Despite the Unionist
leanings of most southern industrialists during secession winter, most ultimately supported the Confederacy. In the first two years of the rebellion, Confederate
national and state governments threatened manufacturers with confiscation of property or conscription of
laborers due to the manufacturers' "extortionist" profits, but most industries followed their own paths
nonetheless: some producing only for state or national
contracts for war materiel while others manufactured
only for public consumption and others still settled on
a mix of both. Wilson demonstrates that profits were
large despite runaway inflation. In the waning years of
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the war, the Confederate national government imposed its will over the competition for manufactured
goods and fully mobilized southern industry for service
in the war effort. By the time the Quartermaster
Department implemented this system of procurement,
however, Union forces had already begun systematically to destroy southern factories in order to impair
the Confederacy's ability to wage war. Confederate
supplies dwindled as a result of the destruction, despite the quartermasters' best efforts to systematize
procurement.
Wilson spends considerable effort in describing the
evolution of the Quartermaster Department as well as
its successes and failures. The Confederacy's first
quartermaster general, Abraham C. Myers, a New
Orleans Jew who had proved an effective quartermaster in the Mexican War, consistently failed to satisfy
the military commanders who needed the shoes, clothing, and other material his bureau supplied. Part of his
failure stemmed from the competition from state
governments seeking supplies for their own troops,
and from the competition from other agencies of the
national government, such as Josiah Gorgas's Ordinance Bureau. But it also stemmed from the controversies surrounding Myers's use of traditional procurement tools such as patronage. President Jefferson
Davis finally replaced him with Alexander Lawton, a
Georgian who did impose standards of efficiency and
accountability lacking under Myers. Despite the impressive system created by Lawton, Union campaigns
increasingly isolated Confederate armies from needed
suppliers located in the trans-Mississippi and the Tennessee Valley. This forced the quartermasters to augment deficiencies by running the Union's naval blockade from Wilmington, North Carolina, to obtain
supplies from Europe in exchange for cotton, via
Bermuda and the Bahamas. Although the quartermasters' blockade runners proved less successful than
runners from other Confederate agencies, they provided enough to make it worth the effort. Once
Wilmington fell to Union forces in early] 865, however, the South lost that method of procurement as
well. By then, everyone could see defeat on the near
horizon.
In the end, the book takes an unexpected twist by
arguing that presidential Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson specifically benefitted southern manufacturers. Presidential pardons allowed many manufacturers to retain their stores of cotton, giving them
the assets to rebuild and restart their factories with
relative ease. Wilson concludes that the advantages
gained during presidential Reconstruction propelled
manufacturing to the forefront of the southern economy, ushering in the era of the New South. This
conclusion, however, is more speculative than proven.
This is an important although frustrating book. The
richness of the primary evidence, which Wilson presents state by state for each step of his argument, is its
greatest strength. One cannot help but be impressed
with the quality of the research and the sheer number
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
of factories he discusses. But Wilson rarely addresses
historiographic issues, and he does not give context
outside discussions of what happened within the Confederacy. Finally, his ad hoc mixture of Turabian-style
endnotes with parenthetic citation is extremely irritating. Notwithstanding these negatives, advanced students will find Wilson's book a good starting place for
their own efforts to go beyond description and engage
in an analysis of manufacturing in the Confederate
South.
MICHAEL GAGNON
University of Georgia
MICHELE TUCKER BUTTS. Galvanized Yankees on the
Upper Missouri: The Face of Loyalty. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. 2003. Pp. xiv, 292. $29.95.
This book by Michele Tucker Butts tracks the story of
a Civil War-era regiment that saw duty not on eastern
battlefields but on the northern Plains. The First
United States Volunteers drew its ranks from Confederate deserters and prisoners of war who in 1864
accepted an invitation to enlist in the Union army.
Organized at Maryland's Camp Hoffman, the recruits
found themselves occupying Fort Rice, on Dakota
Territory's Upper Missouri River. The U.S. army
desperately needed forces in the West, and officials
feared that these soldiers, if taken captive in fights with
Confederates, would face certain death. So the "galvanized yankees" steamed into Sioux country and
spent one year fortifying the growing federal presence
therc. Their primary duties involved attempting to
keep peace with Indian neighbors and to maintain
open transportation and communication lines to points
west.
What makes this group particularly interesting, of
course, is the origins of its members. Why would
former Confederates join this regiment rather than
pursue other options offered them: go north, work on
federal government projects, or be exchanged for
Union prisoners of war and return south? Butts concludes that there are several answers to this question.
Some were immigrants who ended up in the Confederatc army by circumstance rather than conviction and
felt no loyalty to the South. Others were reluctant
"rebels," conscripted against their will. As Confederate hopes dimmed, their loyalties, which were thin to
begin with, disappeared. For most, howcver, commitment to family trumped all other considerations, and
many concluded that, in the long run, those interests
were best served by joining the regiment. In sum,
personal far more than political issues explain their
motives. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dimon, the New
England-born commanding officer, relished the responsibility of bringing these men back into the national fold and ultimately won their admiration.
Alarmed by the extremely high rate of desertion as the
troops steamed up the Missouri River, Dimon cracked
down and executed one particularly disgruntled sol-
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