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TheAmerican Civil War The militaryaspect of the United States Civil War has always attractedthe most attention from scholars. The roar of gunfire, the massedmovements of uniformed men, the shrill o f bugles, and the drama ofhand to hand combat have facinated students of warfare for a century.Behind the lines, however, life was less spectacular. It was the story ofback breaking labor to provide the fighting men with food and arms, ofnerve tingling uncertainty about the course of national events, ofheartbreak over sons or brothers or husbands lost in battle. If the men on thefiring line won the victories, the means to those victories were forgedon the home front. Never in the nations history had Americansworked harder for victory than in the Civil War. Northerners and Southerners alike threw themselves into the task of supplying their respective armies. Bothgovernments made tremendous demands upon civilians and, in general, received willingcooperations. By 1863 the Northern war economy was rumbling along in high gear.Everything from steamboats to shovels was needed and produced.Denied Southern cotton, textile mills turned to wool for blankets anduniforms. Hides by the hundreds of thousands were turned into shoes and harness and saddles; ironworks manufactured locomotives, ordnance, armor plate. Whereprivate enterprise lagged, the government set up its own factories or arsenals.Agriculture boomed, with machinery doing the job of farm workers drawn into thearmy. In short, everything that a nation needed to fight a modern war wasproduced in uncounted numbers. Inevitably there were profiteers with gold headed canes and flamboyant diamond stickpins, but for every crooked tycoon therewere thousands of ordinary citizens living on fixed incomes who did their bestto cope with rising prices and still make a contribution to the war effort.Those who could bought war bonds; others knitted, sewed, nursed, or lent anyother assistance in their power. | 
