This Business Of War ─ The Recollections Of A Civil War Quartermaster

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.

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.