Civil War Barons: The Tycoons, Entrepreneurs, Inventors, and Visionaries Who Forged Victory and Shaped a Nation

by Jeffry D. Wert

Overview

Before the robber barons there were Civil War barons—a remarkable yet largely unknown group of men whose contributions won the war and shaped America's future.

The Civil War woke a sleeping giant in America, creating unprecedented industrial growth that not only supported the struggle but reshaped the nation.

Energized by the country's dormant potential and wealth of natural resources, individuals of vision, organizational talent, and capital took advantage of the opportunity that war provided. Their innovations sustained Union troops, affected military strategy and tactics, and made the killing fields even deadlier. Their ranks included men such as:

John Deere, whose plows helped feed large armies

Gail Borden, whose condensed milk nourished the Union army

The Studebaker Brothers, whose wagons moved war supplies from home front to war front

Robert Parrott, whose rifled cannon was deployed on countless battlefields.

and many others.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306825125
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	11/06/2018
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jeffry D. Wert is the award-winning author of nine previous books on Civil War topics, including Cavalryman of the Lost Cause and A Glorious Army. His articles and essays on the Civil War have appeared in many publications, including Civil War News, Civil War Times Illustrated, American History Illustrated, and Blue and Gray. A former history teacher at Penns Valley High School, he lives in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Prologue Uncertain Giant 1

Chapter 1 Stirrings 9

Chapter 2 The Administrators 23

Chapter 3 The Visionary 39

Chapter 4 The Inventors 55

Chapter 5 The Improvisers 71

Chapter 6 The Patriots 91

Chapter 7 The Investors 107

Chapter 8 The Tinkerers 123

Chapter 9 The Dreamers 141

Chapter 10 The Opportunists 159

Chapter 11 The Builders 173

Epilogue Awakened Giant 191

Postscript 199

Abbreviations 211

Notes 213

Bibliography 245

Index 259

Editorial Reviews

"Jeffry Wert has brought his inimitable style and verve to the story of the key individuals who helped mobilize the resources through entrepreneurship, invention, and innovation necessary to win the Civil War for the Union."—Brian S. Wills, author of Inglorious Passages


"Jeffry Wert has done all of us a great service. Civil War Barons conveys the story about those who helped forge our American Civil War. All of those profiled here had a profound impact not only on the war itself but our lives today. Civil War Barons illustrates why the war is relevant even after more than 150 years."—Wayne E. Motts, CEO of The National Civil War Museum


"Civil War Barons will be long regarded as a must-read for historians and enthusiasts alike. Each chapter chronicles the genius and determination of a handful of individuals who changed forever the way wars were fought; saved the Union; and sparked the industrial might of twentieth-century America. To read Wert's book is to understand the war and its outcome like never before."—Keven Walker, CEO at Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation


"Diverse character studies that give a broad view of the sweeping economic revolutions of the era."—Kirkus

"Wert's skill in weaving together historical argument and satisfying narrative are on full display in Civil War Barons."—The Civil War Monitor

From the Publisher

2018-08-20

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.

Kirkus Reviews