Soldiers and Settlers: Military Supply in the Southwest, 1861-1885

Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989. 1st ed. Hardcover. Near fine with minor soiling to text-block edges; ; lacking jacket. Personal owner bookplate to front past-down.. Quarto in off-white cloth-backed boards; xviii, 506 pages: illustrations, maps ; 24 cm; bibliographical references (pages 487-500) and index. "This book...is not strictly military history. It provides no detailed account of the Indian wars or of military commanders and the forts they built and commanded. Rather it focuses upon the economic interaction between the military and civilians. Its intent is to document the intricacies of military contracting and to assess the army's economic impact on civilian society. The focus therefore is as much on civilians as it is on military personnel. Since the Army was the single largest purchasing and employment agency in the Southwest, it benefited a wide assortment of civilians, including poorer residents who on occasion sold burro loads of hay and wood to the Army. By carefully sifting through military documents, it has been possible to recover important history of a segment of society usually neglected in regional studies. In addition, the study underscores the prominence of the frontier army in western society" -- Pref.

"In the years from the Civil War to the arrival of railroads in the 1880's, the United States Army was the mainstay of the economy of the Southwest. The military paid tens of millions of dollars to local farmers and ranchers for most of the supplies needed to maintain troops and garrisons. The money encouraged expansion of agriculture and commerce, which in turn transformed frontier regions in Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado, and west Texas into homesteads and communities" -Book jacket. "The Southwest developed a mixed economy in an era when laissez-faire capitalism dominated. The army's demand for bread and beef, for instance, created the flour-milling and cattle industries of the Southwest. Moreover, the frontier army was the single largest employer of civilians and relied on them for much of the skilled labor needed in everything from building forts to shoeing horses" --Introd

Economic history. Nachschub Geschichte (1861-1885) Named Corp: United States. Army -- Procurement. United States. Army. Time: Geschichte 1861-1885. 1800-1899 Geographic: Southwest, New -- Economic conditions -- 19th century. États-Unis (Nouveau Sud-Ouest) -- Conditions économiques -- 19e siècle. New Southwest. United States, New Mexico -- History -- 19th century. United States, Southwest (New) -- History -- 19th century. United States, Southwest (New) -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865. United States, Arizona -- History -- 19th century. United States, Southwest (New) -- Military history -- 19th century. United States, Texas -- History -- 19th century. USA -- Südweststaaten.