One thing that I want us to consider today in our discussion is the role of contingency - in history in general, and in determining the root causes and objectives of the Civil War in particular. To wit, that while one thing may be absolutely true in January, it might not be in April. The mutability of the Civil War's main themes are one of the key sources of subsequent disagreement. Mutability is hard to chart. Everybody can be right if they are selective enough in their analysis. But we must chart mutability if we are to understand the war.
The roots of New South industrialization can be found in the policies of Jefferson Davis:
As I mentioned earlier, it was not as though the South was without industry before the Civil War, although the scale of it dramatically increased. The Roswell Mill in Roswell, Georgia is a good example of a factory that became much more important with the onset of war. (It was also a forerunner of the New South textile mill.)
The Roswell Mill located at rolling falls on the Chattahoochee River.
Likewise, the modest Tannehill Iron Works (just south of Birmingham, Alabama) of antebellum times underwent a massive transformation during the war. Birmingham, which did not exist at the time of the Civil War, would be founded on the iron industry that blossomed for the sake of the Confederate effort.
Similarly, North Georgia also had a nascent iron industry in Bartow and Cherokee Counties. The Cooper Furnace is representative of this period of time. The area did not develop into a major iron and steel producer, however, because the local ore deposits were not nearly as rich of those found in Alabama.
More sophisticated manufacturing took place in cities like New Orleans, where the Leeds Foundry (today owned by the Preservation Resource Center) fabricated everything from cannon to ironclad ships. The city's early loss to the Union Navy was a blunder of epic proportions from many standpoints, not the least of which was the supply of war materials.
Like other Southern industrial enterprises begun in the 1830s, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia grew tremendously during the war. But few other factories were nearly as important.
Southern manufacturers had to be resourceful. Often times the weapons they produced contained material substitutions when possible - i.e., iron instead of steel, brass instead of iron. A good example of this can be found when comparing the Spiller and Burr revolver to the Starr Revolver picture below:
The Confederacy's need to manufacture the goods of war led it to engage in ambitious plans, including that of the national armory in Macon, Georgia. Considering the "non-industrial nature" of the South, it's construction, which began in 1863, was remarkable. It never fully realized its potential by the time of the war's end.
A photograph of the recently captured Macon Arsenal taken in June, 1865.
Yet in the end, southern manufacturing was a shabby replica of efforts in the North, where a major industrial complex began to flourish during the war.
No comments:
Post a Comment