That nations could create military forces rapidly is well illustrated by the American Confederacy. although the region was not industrialized, it developed a munitions industry promptly.Confederate soldiers were frequently barefooted, but they seldom lacked ammunition. When they did, it was usually due to logistics problems caused by inadequate transportation facilities. Nor did the South lack the means to implement military innovations that required technological expertise, as the ironclad ship Merrimac (C.S.S. Virginia-HW) illustrated. Materiel did play an important role in deciding the outcome of the Civil War, but to the extent that it did, it was because the North had more of it, as well as more manpower and a stronger desire to see the war through to the bitter end.

The above paragraph extract from Production For Defense, Chapter I, page 7- The Defense Sector of the U.S. Economy, Published by the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1968.

Josiah Gorgas wrote the following of himself, which I include in this post as autobiography:

Decades

In 1824 on this day I was a little boy running about the streets of a village in the interior of Pa., called Myerstown in Lebanon Co.
In 1834 I was the youngest apprentice in a printing office in Lyons, N.Y., probably I was distributing the "Carrier's Address" for it was the duty of the youngest to carry about the papers of the village subscribers.
In 1844 I was on this day a Lieut in the U.S. Army, having gone thro' West Point, stationed in a little hamlet where there was an Arsenal, Dearbornville, about 18 miles west of Detroit.
In 1854 on this day I was a happy bridegroom at Mt. Vernon, my darling wife, a bride of three days,with me. Two years ago, after an absence of 17 years, I went back to see the house to which I had taken her as a young wife. What a history between now and then, passed thro' my mind. I saw the same walks we had trodden together, the same trees we had looked on. What indescribable emotion, to think on those happy, happy days, when life seemed without a care and the whole world was joy.
In 1864, on this day, I was in Richmond, Chief of the Ordn Dept of a great young nation which had received its death wound, & was slowly lapsing to destruction. But we were even then still hopeful. Like the victim of consumption we mistook every little success for recovery from that certain death toward which we were hastening & from which there was no earthly power to save us.

Gorgas died on May 15, 1883, at home on the University of Alabama Campus.