Wartime Military Mobilization, Business, and Technology

Civil War history is often thought of as a field dominated by traditional military histories, focused on battles, generals, and soldiers fighting in the field. ¹ However, there is a long, proud tradition of studying the sinews of the Civil War, defined broadly, to include subjects such as the mobilization of men and women (as soldiers and civilian war workers), wartime political economies, technology, and business. Before the Civil War centennial of the early 1960s, these subjects had already been investigated by many talented historians, including Wesley Mitchell, Fred Shannon, Frank Vandiver, Ella Lonn, Mary Massey, Charles Ramsdell, Richard Todd, Robert Bruce, William Hesseltine, and Russell Weigley. ²