This Business of War: Recollections of a Civil War Quartermaster

by William G. Le Duc, Adam E. Scher (Foreword by)

Overview

Amidst the din of battle and the chaos of armies on the move, William G. Le Duc of Hastings, Minnesota, writes of the frenzied life of an officer in the Quartermaster Department during the Civil War. Concerned with the logistical details of supplying the Army of the Potomac as it bogged down during the Peninsula campaign or of commandeering a steamboat to relieve the siege and get food to stranded soldiers at Chattanooga, Le Duc tells his story of mud-choked roads, incompetent commanders, and what he understands as the crucial factor necessary for the Union's success in battle: a well-supplied army. Through his close association with Generals McClellan and Meade, Hooker and Sherman, Le Duc learned to master the army's bureaucracy and overcome the hardships of trying to keep Union supplies on the move. His compelling memoir is unique in depicting the details of life in the Quartermaster Department.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780873515085
Publisher:	Minnesota Historical Society Press
Publication date:	11/15/2004
Edition description:	1
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

William G. Le Duc (1823-1917) moved to the Minnesota Territory in 1850. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he volunteered into the Quartermaster Department and mustered out four years later as brevet brigadier general. He later served as the U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture from 1877 until 1881 and retired to his home in Hastings, Minnesota. Adam E. Scher is a curator at the Minnesota Historical Society.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	v
1	Family Matters	1
2	Growing Up in Ohio	9
3	Farming and College	18
4	Frontier Travel and Henry Clay	24
5	Westward to Minnesota Territory	31
6	The Crystal Palace Exhibition	42
7	Indian Trouble in St. Paul	54
8	Railroads and Land	58
9	Preparations for War	65
10	The Chickahominy Campaign	72
11	The Life of a Quartermaster	78
12	Retreat with the Army of the Potomac	87
13	With the Eleventh Corps	94
14	At Bridgeport	105
15	With General Hooker	114
16	On to Atlanta	123
17	The Beginning of the End	132
18	A Western Trip	142
19	At Brainerd, Minnesota	146
20	Commissioner of Agriculture	149
21	At Work as Commissioner	162

Editorial Reviews

"This is one of the best surviving sources on how the Union supplied its troops during the Civil War. Le Duc's lively memoir details operations of several western armies, and his friendship with General W. T. Sherman reveals much about living off the enemy's country and Atlanta's fall." — Frank E. Vandiver, author of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the Civil War and Civil War Battlefields and Landmarks

From the Publisher