The formation of the Confederate States of America involved more
than an attempt to create a new, sovereign nation -- it inspired a
flurry of creativity and entrepreneurialism in the South that
fiercely matched Union ingenuity. H. Jackson Knight's Confederate
Invention brings to light the forgotten history of the
Confederacy's industrious inventors and its active patent
office.
Despite the destruction wrought by the Civil War, evidence of
Confederate inventions exists in the registry of the Confederate
States Patent Office. Hundreds of southerners submitted
applications to the agency to secure patents on their intellectual
property, which ranged from a "machine for operating submarine
batteries," to a "steam plough," to a "combined knapsack and tent,"
to an "instrument for sighting cannon." The Confederacy's most
successful inventors included entrepreneurs, educators, and
military men who sought to develop new weapons, weapon
improvements, or other inventions that could benefit the
Confederate cause as well as their own lives. Each creation belied
the conception of a technologically backward South, incapable of
matching the creativity and output of northern counterparts.
Knight's work provides a groundbreaking study that includes
neglected and largely forgotten patents as well as an array of
other primary sources. Details on the patent office's origins,
inner workings, and demise, and accounts of southern inventors who
obtained patents before, during, and after the war reveal a
captivating history recovered from obscurity.
A novel creation in its own right, Confederate Invention
presents the remarkable story behind the South's long-forgotten
Civil War inventors and offers a comprehensive account of
Confederate patents.
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