Although the South had plenty of cotton, it did not have the industrial capacity to turn enough of that cotton into tent canvas. The South had plenty of wood to build barracks, but there was a shortage of nails at Andersonville and no one thought to order them far enough in advance. Not enough sawmills existed in that part of Georgia to make boards, and the sawmills that did exist were working day and night for railroads whose ties and rolling stock the Yankees kept burning.
