History Seminar

Abstract: It is commonly thought that the North was bound to win the Civil War thanks to its superior industrial capacity over the South. But Confederates had a trump card: vast territorial size. The logistics of conquering the Confederacy—more than three times the area of the Iberian Peninsula, where Napoleon's armies came to grief—were so formidable that many contemporary observers considered the task impossible. No logistical burden was greater than feeding the army's horses deep in enemy territory. By detailing the equine energy system at the heart of nineteenth-century warfare and economic activity, this talk will not only illuminate the real determinants of Union victory, but the nature of the energy transition that carried the world into the carbon age.