Because of the fact that I am an idiot…I somehow posted this original post on one of my old undergraduate blogs. Had Dr. Winling not pointed this out, I would never have thought to look there to find it, as I was frantically looking for it. I am posting this for my fellow cohort members to peruse….

Over Spring Break, I was able to advance my research by reading through many of the books and articles which I have been collecting over the last few weeks. I have been able to dig many different sources up, especially in the field of imported items into the Confederacy. The ability to uniform, arm, and equip the soldiers of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, (the specific army on which I am doing my research) more aptly than previously understood, makes for quite a compelling argument for the capabilities of the Confederate States of America’s Quartermaster system, as well as for the Confederate logistical system.

The research that I have been able to uncover shows a significant increase in imported uniforms, shoes, accoutrements, weapons, including small arms, artillery, and edged weapons. What was the main source of the downfall with the Confederacy, was not the shortage of uniforms, weapons, and equipment, not the fewer numbers of fighting men, not even the overarching agenda of slavery, reprehensible as it was, it was due mainly to political infighting, the argument between states, over state’s rights vs. a central government, and the lack of being able to properly feed the men in the field.

In doing all of the reading on my sources and digging deeper into how I am going to frame my argument, ask my questions, and attempt to redefine my focus statement, I am suddenly aware of a new direction I wish to take my research. I feel that to try to engage with the idea of dispelling the myth of the “ragged” rebel, I will be unable to tackle the myth, the material culture aspect of an argument, and the origin/longevity of the myth in one paper, and still be able to meet the assignment parameters in a timely fashion.

I therefore wish to examine the evolution of the Confederate supply system and the way that the importation of foreign military goods helped to allow the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to fight on for four years.  This will allow me to examine ship manifests, ordnance records, diaries, journals, quartermaster reports, inspector general reports and analyses, as well as much of the secondary research into various aspects of material culture, which in turn, will help to help paint the picture of how the importation of foreign goods aided the Confederacy in its fight for Southern Independence.

The source which I chose to investigate for this blog post is an article by Leslie Jensen, in which he examines extant Confederate uniforms in particular. His ability to differentiate the various depot patterns, the changes over time, the origins of the patterns for the item, the construction techniques, i.e. hand sewn vs. machine, etc., and the artifact’s significance to the field of material culture is evident in his research into the field. In his article, Jensen breaks down several different surviving uniforms, and attempts to formulate a sort of typing system for these items.

The author uses extensive research into original sources materials, not only the uniforms themselves, but quartermaster records, requisition forms, journals, diaries, and goes into great detail in secondary sources. His methodology utilizes the lenses of material culture, cultural, social, political, and economic studies. The way that he examines these items alone, is material culture. As for the cultural and social aspects of researching the topic(s), this includes a look at Southern homefront ways of meeting the challenge of supplying the soldiers in a “stop gap” way of filling the need for outfitting the soldiers until foreign goods could be secured. This includes who would have been working on these items at the time, be it women, or men that were not fighting at the front. The political and economic lenses examine the Confederacy’s trade and purchasing operations abroad from foreign supporters, or military goods companies.

My research interests and my lenses of examination will follow Jensen’s model and will look more closely at the way that the Confederate supply system evolved and how the foreign partners in supplying the Confederacy’s war efforts made the Confederate cause last longer than it should have been able to on its own.

In my recent research, I found a short history of the experiences and reminiscences of Major Caleb Huse,  the purchasing agent for the Confederate States of America. This was a great source of information and it helped to bolster my belief that there were still yet new resources to investigate, even after 150 years. The significance of this source is that these are the personal recollections of the  purchasing agent for the Confederacy in England, and other European countries. This is important because it shows that foreign goods were making it through the Union navy’s blockade of Confederate ports and thus making a difference in how efficiently the war was fought by Southern troops.

• Why did you choose this particular item as representative of the archive you’ve created at this point in the research process? I chose to use this source as my primary source this week because it was a recent find and it was written by the Confederate officer, Major Caleb Huse. He was the Purchasing Agent for the Confederate States of America. His main job was to procure military arms, equipment, uniforms, ammunition, and other supplies for waging the war against the North. This source includes his recollections and personal insight, which provides a rare view into this important aspect of supplying the Confederacy’s military.
• How did you discover the source? Where is it located? This source was one that I ran across during a database mining search on Worldcat and I also found it on the America’s History and Life site.
• How does the source help you locate an answer to your research question? What can this type of source tell you? When researching the Confederate States of America’s quartermaster supply/logistics system, I have been finding multiple references to English army cloth uniforms, Austrian rifles, English accouterments, imported shoes, and various other items necessary for fighting the war. This source gives Major Huse’s unique perspective on his experiences in acquiring the aforementioned goods. When you take these reminiscences into account, and compare them with surviving ship manifests of Confederate and foreign blockade runners,  you begin to gain a better picture of the supplies making to the front line soldiers. These supplies were instrumental in keeping the Confederate fighting men equipped and surprisingly well equipped at that, during the latter part of the war.
• How will you interrogate the source-what methodology will you employ? I plan on interrogating this source using the methodological approach of material culture, military, political, and economic lenses.
• What are the problems with this category of sources/what can’t you learn, what are the biases? Even though this is a primary source, it was written forty + years after the events and are told from a definite pro-Confederate point of view. The information that could be missing are various ship’s manifests and possible Confederate government records, as thousands of documents were destroyed in the last few days of the Confederacy’s existence, especially in the evacuation of the capital in Richmond, Virginia. Some of the biases that need to be overcome are preconceived notions of the Confederate soldier’s lack of supplies and the image that many people have conjured up in their own minds of “what” a Confederate soldier should look like.
• What sorts of sources will you need to confirm/ complete/ complement this source? This source will be used to corroborate surviving ship’s manifests and will also be compared to the Library of Congress holdings of surviving quartermaster records and inspector general’s reports, showing actual issuance of uniforms, equipment, shoes, supplies, weapons, and ammunition. Surviving photographs and actual material culture items will also complement this source.

I believe that this source will be of great value to my overall research and end research proposal. I am excited about finding this source and look forward to investigating this source along with the possible implications of what it could bring to future historians studying this subject.