"By 1860 the South ranked high among the developed countries of the world in per capita income and life expectancy and in the number of railroad miles, telegraph lines, and institutions of higher learning. Only the major European powers and the North had more cotton and woolen spindles. This book examines the Confederate military's program to govern this prosperous industrial base by a quartermaster system. By commandeering more than half the South's produced goods for the military, the quartermaster general, in a drift toward socialism, appropriated hundreds of mills and controlled the flow of southern factory commodities."-- $c Provided by publisher.

Never before fully explored, a history of the South's antebellum industrial base, its devastation in war and its postbellum restoration.

The advent of Abraham C. Myers, Quartermaster General of the Confederacy -- The reign of quartermasters -- Confederate mobilization -- Factories under siege -- The Bureau of Foreign Supplies and the Crenshaw Line -- The coming of total war -- The tortuous course toward economic reconstruction -- Forging the New South.