Booknotes: Treasure and Empire in the Civil War

New Arrival:

• Treasure and Empire in the Civil War: The Panama Route, the West and the Campaigns to Control America's Mineral Wealth by Neil P. Chatelain (McFarland, 2024).

Naval historian Neil Chatelain's 2020 book Defending the Arteries of Rebellion made my Top 10 list for that year. Like that earlier work, Chatelain's Treasure and Empire in the Civil War contributes to our knowledge and understanding of the naval history of the Civil War, but this new study also aligns itself with recent trends in Civil War scholarship, particularly those examining the contested borderlands and international dimensions of the conflict.

Over the past two decades, more and more books have emphasized the continental reach (and beyond) of the American Civil War. From the description: Treasure and Empire in the Civil War explores the campaigns "waged over whether the United States or Confederacy would dominate lands, mines, and seaborne transportation networks of North America's mineral wealth. The U.S. needed this wealth to stabilize their wartime economy while the Confederacy sought to expand their own treasury. Confederate armies advanced to seize the West and its gold and silver reserves, while warships steamed to intercept Panama route ships transporting bullion from California to Panama to New York. United States forces responded by expelling Confederate incursions and solidified territorial control by combating Indigenous populations and enacting laws encouraging frontier settlement. The U.S. Navy patrolled key ports, convoyed treasure ships, and integrated continent-wide intelligence networks in the ultimate game of cat and mouse." Sounds very interesting.

In examining the war effort-sustaining contest over possessing and harnessing far-flung mineral resources, Chatelain links "the Civil War's military, naval, political, diplomatic and economic elements. Included are the hemispheric land and sea adventures involving tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, admiral and explorer Charles Wilkes, renowned sea captain Raphael Semmes, General Henry Sibley, cowboy and mountain man Kit Carson, Indigenous leaders Mangas Coloradas and Geronimo, writer and miner Mark Twain, and Mormon leader Brigham Young."