ave yet made a deep psychological impact. The British army, for example, issued until 1840 a little-modified version of the "Brown Bess" musket that had first been introduced before 1700. Until about the same time, Britannia ruled the waves with ships that were essentially only refined versions of those that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Long before the industrial revolution, Western armies were routinely defeating non-Western opponents; the did so not through superior weapons or resources, but by an exceptionally formidible military tradition, ultimately perhaps the heritage of Rome. The Civil War, however, pitted two sides that shared the Western military heritage, but differed greatly in their industrial capacity. Robert E. Lee was most certainly not outclassed by any Union general in his understanding of the principles of modern (by 1860 standards) warfare. The generals of the two sides had learned their trade side by side, at West Point, in Indian wars, and in the Mexican War. In their understanding of the battle field arts there was no significant difference between the two sides--save, perhaps, that Southern generals were on the whole better at it. In Lee, the Confederacy had from the outset a field commander and strategist of the first class; Lincoln's struggle to find an adequate field commander is famous. The South was, moreover, the most martial part of the United States (itself a cause of its advantage in generals). In fighting qualities, Confederate soldiers of every rank were certainly the equal of their Union counterparts, yet in the end the South lost. We argue that it lost largely because of the Union's industrial superiority, but to what degree was anyone, on either side, aware of this fact? Moreover, if the leaders (and people) of one or the other, or both, of the warring sides were not fully aware of these factors, to what degree could they make use of them?
Let us begin the industrial com...