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The Civil War straddled two ages. It was both the last great pre-industrial war and the first major war of the
industrial era. For the North, the central problem was bringing to the battlefield its immense superiority in manpower,
agriculture, industry, and transportation. The South’s critical problem was creating an industrial base for
war-making.
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By the time of the Civil War, American industrialization and the expansion of communications with railroad and telegraph
made logistics—obtaining and distributing war supplies—even more important than in earlier wars. No longer
could armies so readily live off the land and obtain their supplies from local sources.
Neither side was well prepared for war and no one fully anticipated the full scope of what was to come. Organizing the war
effort began as a makeshift process that only gradually assumed rational form. West Pointers played key roles, North and
South. Two stand out for their extraordinary achievement: Confederate chief of ordnance Josiah Gorgas (Class of 1841) and
Union Quartermaster-General Montgomery C. Meigs (1836).
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