The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization and the State, 1861–1865 (review)

Given how frequently Americans argue about the costs of military operations, it is surprising that Wilson's book represents the first substantive investigation of the Union's Civil War procurement's institutions and dynamics in several generations. Wilson has undertaken exhaustive research in rarely visited archival collections (mostly public, as few wartime contractors' records survive), and has consulted contemporary newspapers, journals, and legal case files to build a careful and thorough analysis of the United States' greatest federal spending spree of the nineteenth century.

Commencing with an appraisal of the antebellum federal supply system, this study demonstrates that the Army Quartermasters Department fostered careers in which officers (and some civilian employees) mastered the complexities and hazards of purchasing, storage, and—most trying—shipping and hauling the thousands of items that military units needed for everyday operations and special expeditions. Following Skowronek and his colleagues in developing a more inclusive framework for political history, Wilson documents the rising competencies of state institutions, in this case a procurement bureaucracy that was sorely tested by the national schism.¹ Moreover, implicitly, and explicitly in its closing "Essay on Sources," Business of Civil War extends the critique of "courts and parties" approaches to nineteenth-century American politics, particularly underscoring the significance of experienced military managers in setting out the materiel framework for the North's victory.

Unlike in other segments of the North's wartime military and bureaucracy, where lightly experienced and politically connected men vaulted into positions of influence and authority, the quartermasters, under the steady leadership of General Montgomery Meigs, deployed a much-needed professionalism, resisted political appointments, and battled to conserve Union dollars, assure quality, and ship supplies to critical destinations in a timely way. Wilson effectively shows how Union financial troubles, most notably shortages of greenbacks, pressed the Corps to issue promissory notes (vouchers) and one-year bonds (certificates) as payment for large contracts. In general, this practice drove small industrial and agricultural entrepreneurs out of the supply business, because they needed cash for labor, material, or, given the centrality of horses to military maneuver, feed bills. Businessmen and politicians, in what Wilson terms a "producerist" reaction to the wartime "mixed military economy," charged purchasing officers and leading contractors with corruption; indeed, several show trials were held during the conflict. (72)

What this fascinating book provides is not so much an interdisciplinary methodology as a series of interdisciplinary themes, well articulated and convincingly developed—the political economy of warfare, the dynamics of bureaucracies in crisis, the geography of transport and communication, and the professionalization of the military in a highly politicized environment. The author's prose is less than sprightly, and his claim for the "unacknowledged militarization of America" is not always compelling. But Wilson's research and core analyses are solid (191). For reconstituting the complexity, the tensions, and the institutional innovations of massive war supply in a horse-and-wagon economy, Wilson deserves a hearty round of thanks from historians and political scientists.