Civil War barons The tycoons, entrepreneurs, inventors, and visionaries who forged victory and shaped a nation

Jeffry D. Wert

Book - 2018

"Before the Civil War, America had undergone a technological revolution that made large-scale industry possible, yet, except for the expanding reach of railroads and telegraph lines, the country remained largely rural, with only pockets of small manufacturing. Then the war came and woke the sleeping giant. The Civil War created a wave of unprecedented industrial growth and development, producing a revolution in new structures, ideas, and inventions that sustained the struggle and reshaped America. Energized by the country's dormant potential and wealth of natural resources, individuals of vision, organizational talent, and capital took advantage of the opportunity war provided. Their innovations sustained Union troops, affected mi...litary strategy and tactics, and made the killing fields even deadlier. Individually, these men came to dominate industry and amass great wealth and power; collectively, they helped save the Union and refashion the economic fabric of a nation. Utilizing extensive research in manuscript collections, company records, and contemporary newspapers, historian Jeffry D. Wert casts a revealing light on the individuals most responsible for bringing the United States into the modern age"--

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Subjects
Genres
Biographies
Published
New York, NY : Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc 2018.
Language
English
Main Author
Jeffry D. Wert (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xii, 276 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780306825125
  • Preface
  • Prologue Uncertain Giant
  • Chapter 1. Stirrings
  • Chapter 2. The Administrators
  • Chapter 3. The Visionary
  • Chapter 4. The Inventors
  • Chapter 5. The Improvisers
  • Chapter 6. The Patriots
  • Chapter 7. The Investors
  • Chapter 8. The Tinkerers
  • Chapter 9. The Dreamers
  • Chapter 10. The Opportunists
  • Chapter 11. The Builders
  • Epilogue Awakened Giant
  • Postscript
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Popular history of the economy of the Civil War era, a transformative time on the commercial/financial as much as the military fronts.The usual picture of homefront conditions during the Civil War is a grim time of illness, cold, and hunger. From the Southern side, that's not off the mark, but as Wert (A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee's Triumph, 1862-1863, 2011, etc.) records, the Northern economy boomed, the result of decades of investment and industrialization during which the South relied on slave-based agriculture. So it was that "private gunmakers in just one Connecticut county produced more firearms than gunsmiths in the entire slaveholding South," good cause for William Tecumseh Sherman to warn secessionists that they would be overwhelmed by "one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth." The economic strength of the North was fueled by inventors, financiers, and industrialists, nearly 20 of whom Wert profiles here. Readers will have heard of many of them, if only because their names endure in companies that have descended from them: John Deere, for instance, whose Illinois blacksmith shop took advantage of immigrant labor and the nearby Mississippi River to mass-produce a plow that, along with Cyrus McCormick's reaper, enabled large-scale agriculture. Other familiar names carry stories that are sometimes more puzzling than inspirational: Gail Borden, for example, who tried to promote a "meat biscuit" in the place of Army rations but failed abjectly, since it "was simply not palatable," only to thrive by selling condensed milk to the federal commissary. Wert glances over some key moments: for instance, the abolitionist sympathies of the Californians who would become transcontinental railroad barons, thwarting Jefferson Davis' push to take that railroad first across the South. Still, he turns up some fine nuggets, such as repeating-rifle inventor Christopher Spencer's failure to keep his fortune, consoling himself with the deathbed thought that "the best I can say is I don't think I am leaving any enemies."Diverse character studies that give a broad view of the sweeping economic revolutions of the era. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.