Ironmaker to the Confederacy; Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works (review)

272civil war history eraUy chosen weU, and most of the relevant books and articles he did not use are Usted in the bibUography. Two pieces he failed to cite deserve mention: Edward W. Phifer's very fine article, "Slavery in Microcosm: Burke County, North Carolina," Journal of Southern History, XXVIII (1962), 137-165; and the essay entitled "A Polemical Postscript on Economic Growth" in Conrad and Meyer, The Economics of Sfovery (1964), which challenges the Linden-Genovese thesis that slavery was primarily responsible for lagging industrial development in the Old South. On the whole, however, Woodman has done a first-rate job of assembling, editing, and annotating his materials. Teachers offering college or graduatelevel courses in southern, Negro, or American economic history should give this coUection careful consideration. Charles B. Dew Louisiana State University Ironmaker to the Confederacy; Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works. By Charles B. Dew. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966. Pp. ix, 345. $10.00.) Armies travel on their stomachs, but batties are won by the effective use of an abundant supply of munitions. When the strength of one of the beUigerents is sustained almost whoUy by an agricultural economy, the essential flow of cannon, mortars, shot, sheU, ship armor plate, and other müitary hardware from the few munitions makers within its borders becomes a supply problem of the first magnitude. This is an account of the Civü War operations of the principal manufacturer of munitions for the Confederacy, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia. Through sheer good fortune or inexphcable foresight the voluminous Tredegar records survived the destruction of war and the hazards of time to become the main source of this exceUent study by Charles B. Dew of Louisiana State University. The twenty-three years from its founding in 1837 to the onset of secession were years fuU of handicaps and vicissitudes for Tredegar. They were caused by the predominandy agricultural milieu in which it tried to function : difficulties in securing raw materials; the lack of skiUed mechanics; the limited markets to be found in the South; and the competition from northern iron producers who could underseU the Richmond firm because their advanced technology kept their costs down. On the eve of the war Tredegar was finding it more profitable to buy northern pig iron for processing than make its down. To win southern trade, principaUy railroad business in the latter 1850's, Joseph Reid Anderson, head of the firm, extoUed the superior quality of his products and beat the drums of surging sectional loyalty to support industrial independence for the South. The Civil War pulled Anderson's firm back from the brink of bankruptcy ; its profits for 1861 were a handsome half million doUars with which it settled aU its debts except $50,000 due northern creditors—whom book reviews273 it could not pay because government sequestration prevented it. Professor Dew uses the company's ledgers and letterbooks and Confederate government records to show costs, sales prices, and contract negotiations. Government subsidies to encourage the speedy production of badly needed materials such as coal and iron, and advance loans up to one-third of the value of contracts it placed with suppliers, were the inducements used to expedite output. Tredegar benefited from these, but it was also hard nosed in demanding prices that escalated in ratio to its costs and which would assure it a comfortable margin of profit. At one time Secretary of War Thomas S. Rhett denounced the firm for being a monopoly that was making 60 per cent to 80 per cent profit on its contracts. Anderson, a brigadier general for part of a year, was a strong Confederate patriot, but patriotism did not exclude profit making. Tactics and pressure, some subde, some obvious, resorted to by bodi Tredegar negotiators and by Confederate army and navy officials are adepdy revealed and rationalized by the audior. Some of Tredegar's earnings were invested in blockade runners that brought in much needed tools and machinery; but cargoes also consisted of consumer goods, scarce in the Soudi, which demanded high prices commensurate with die investment and die risk fn evading die Union blockaders . The runners on their outbound sprints...