author
Caleb Huse
1831–1905
A West Point–trained officer who later wrote a firsthand account of Confederate wartime supply efforts in Europe, he offers a direct window into one of the Civil War's lesser-known logistical stories. His brief memoir is especially notable for its insider view of how weapons and materials were purchased abroad.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1831, Caleb Huse graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1851 and later served there as an instructor. During the Civil War, he left the U.S. Army and became a procurement officer for the Confederate States, working mainly in Europe to secure arms and military supplies.
Huse is remembered today less for a large body of writing than for one focused historical work: The Supplies for the Confederate Army, How They Were Obtained in Europe and How Paid For, published in 1904. In it, he drew on personal experience to describe the behind-the-scenes effort to purchase weapons overseas and move them to the Confederacy.
He died in 1905. For readers interested in Civil War history, his writing stands out as a concise primary-source account from a man who was directly involved in a crucial and complicated part of the conflict.