Ironmaker To The Confederacy

Under the guidance of Joseph Reid Anderson, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond - the largest iron manufacturer in the Confederacy - reflected, and to an important degree shaped, the fortunes of the South. Mr. Dew traces in detail the history of the company from 1859-67. Dependence on the North for raw materials and skilled labor, increasing competition from Yankee manufacturers in the Southern iron market, and the Tredegar owners' growing antagonism toward the North are the dominant themes of the prewar chapters. Secession , which the Richmond industrialists desired and encouraged, made Tredegar production crucial to the South but also brought crippling shortages of strategic materials. The book outlines the dramatic expansion of the company's activities as it attempted, with government aid, to overcome these deficiencies. Production successes and failures and their influence on Confederate military fortunes, efforts to correct labor shortages, the condition of slave and free industrial workers during the war, and the owners' attempts to maximize profits in the face of galloping inflation are all examined. The final chapter on the war years traces the decline in military production as the Tredegar management funneled increasing amounts of iron to private consumers and the Southern industrial economy disintegrated. Of both human and historical interest is Mr. Dew's account of successful efforts by Anderson and his associates to secure pardons, from the President and capital from Northern industrialists in order to reclaim and rebuild the Tredegar. -- Publisher.