Every two steps forward is three steps back as my colleague and I push on with our book. We wrote a rough draft from Grant's early life to the battle of Shiloh, but we are rereading the draft and changing the structure and organization. The purpose is to create a better story, not another dissertation. There is a thesis, but Grant's genius for war deserves a well-balanced story. Therefore, my colleague and I are back at the beginning of his life, analyzing the key events and environment around him.
I am doing my best to get through Hagerman's The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare. It is not because I am not enjoying it, but I have so many other books to get through. Over Christmas, I received Steven Woodworth's Civil War Generals in Defeat and Tim Smith's Bayou Battles for Vicksburg. In fact, Hagerman's book is one of the better books I have read about logistics in the American Civil War. He goes into quite a bit of detail about the supply and organizational issues in both the Union and Confederate armies. He goes beyond this by analyzing the government's role in acquiring funds for their militaries.
The Confederate government suffered from a unique problem. After they failed to procure funds from exporting cotton to other foreign nations, the Confederate government could not implement price controls on the economy, leading to inflation and hoarding; laissez-faire economics dominated society, and such measures would be ignored or criticized. As some
Southerners complained of an encroaching United States government; they needed a more involved national government to provide for their military department. Initially, the patriotic fervor led to a substantial volunteer force, but over time, the Confederate government depended on increasing controls to help their military better at the expense of individuality. By 1865, conscription, curfew, and recruitment of African Americans were too little, too late to aid the Confederate cause.
Hagerman, Edward. The American Civil War and the origins of modern warfare. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992.
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