Economic Change in the Civil War Era: An Analysis of Recent Studies

ECONOMIC CHANGE IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA: AN ANALYSIS OF RECENT STUDIES Harry N. Scheiber No student of the Civil War would dispute T. Harry Williams' contention that it was "a war of matériel, bringing into full play for the first time the great transforming forces of the Industrial Revolution."1 Yet historians disagree sharply as to how the war affected the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The appearance of a new volume, Economic Change in the Cwil War Era,2 consisting of papers and discussion at a Hagley Foundation conference, is thus welcome indeed, for it helps to give focus to the issues in dispute and suggests important new Unes of inquiry. Much of the present controversy about the relationship between industrial growth and the Civil War was provoked by Thomas Cochran 's essay, published in 1960, "Did the Civil War Retard Industrialization ?"3 In it, Professor Cochran challenged what he termed the orthodox view that the war stimulated the rise of the modern industrial economy. Charles Beard and others, Cochran asserted, had misled scholars and numerous textbook writers with their emphasis (or so he interpreted it) upon the war as a stimulus to industrial growth. His main evidence consisted of decadal rates of growth for certain industrial commodities. He also attempted to refute arguments concerning the importance of institutional changes associated with the war. His case rested principally, however, upon estimates of commodity output made by Robert Gallman, an economist at the University of North Carolina. The Gallman estimates showed that the rate IT. Harry Williams, Americans at War (New York, 1962), p. 55. 2 Economic Change in the Civil War Era. Edited by David T. Gilchrist and W. David Lewis. (Greenville, Del.: Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation, 1965. Pp. ix, 180. $2.00 cloth; $1.25 paper.) 3 Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLVIII (1961), 197-210. Reprinted in Raph Andreano (ed.), Economic Impact of the American Civil War (Cambridge , 1962); and H. Scheiber (ed.), United States Economic History (New York, 1964). Citations to Cochran's article in this essay will be from Andreano's volume. 396 of commodity-output increase was slower during 1859-1869 than in the 185(Vs or after 1869. This led Cochran to conclude that the war exerted mainly a retardative influence on industrialization. In the short run, production increases slowed down; and in the long run, according to Cochran, changes impelled by the war had little constructive influence.4 Cochran's essay initiated a lively and spirited debate on the war's economic effects. Unfortunately, it also contributed to a wide misunderstanding of what Charles Beard had actually written. Although Beard surely was guilty of some vagueness in treating the short-term economic effects of the war, nowhere in his The Rise of American Civilization (1927) did he assert or imply that the conflict stimulated the pace of industrial growth in the short run (that is, during 18591869 ). In fact, he specifically referred to the major "economic losses due to the immense diversion of energies" during 1861-1865.5 On the other hand, Beard did write that the Civil War "assured the triumph of business enterprise" in America.6 The crux of Beard's argument involved two related theses: (1) that the war was a crucial episode, bringing a transfer of political power, in the "Second American Revolution" (ca. 1830-1880)—a long-term series of basic social and economic changes which behavioral scientists would term political and social modernization; and (2) that the war stimulated further industrial expansion mainly by carrying to power men willing and eager to enact a program that favored growth along modern lines, with large-scale, heavy industry dominant in the economy . Beard recognized fully that industrialization was far advanced by I860; indeed, this is one of the main themes in his work. He did not suggest that industrial growth began with the war, nor did he assert that the war was necessary to produce the pattern of industrial change that prevailed after 1865. Rather, he maintained that a transfer of political power from the planter aristocracy to the new industrial capitalists was inevitable; the only question remaining unsettled when Lincoln was elected was whether the...