An Analysis of Confederate Subsistence Logistics
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis was to examine the policies and procedures devised by the Confederate States of America to provision its armed forces. In using the historical experience of the Confederates in logistics management, it was felt that fresh insight could be given to logistics problems of the present. The method was essentially an inductive one. The specific procedures used by the Confederates, and the success or failure in which those procedures resulted, were examined to find their roots in pervasive principles of logistics management that are still valid today. The Confederate experience was divided into three main areas in accordance with the United States Air Force definition of logistics. Those areas were 1) the production of food supplies, 2) the transportation system of the Confederacy, and 3) administrative procedures, both national and within the Subsistence Bureau, used to coordinate subsistence activities. It was found that the Confederates were able to produce adequate food supplies during the war, but that national coordination was lacking and the transportation system was incapable of handling distribution requirements of the size generated in the Civil War.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA215428
Entities
People
- Benjamin M. Washburn Iv
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology