Outsourcing, Lincoln-Style

I'm working my way through Doris Kearns Goodwin's fascinating assessment of the Lincoln presidency, Team of Rivals, trying to gain some insights on how one of the nation's greatest presidents took on the challenge of setting up his administration under especially difficult circumstances.

The book has some terrific details about the management challenges Lincoln faced at the outset of his term, as the Civil War broke out.

"The demands placed on the War Department in the early days of the war were indeed excruciating," Goodwin writes. "Not only were weapons in short supply, but uniforms, blankets, horses, medical supplies, food and everything else necessary to outfit the vast numbers of volunteer soldiers arriving in Washington daily were unobtainable. It would have taken thousands of personnel to handle the varied functions of the quartermasters department, the ordnance office, the engineering department, the medical office and the pay department. Yet in 1861, the War Department consisted of fewer than two hundred people, including clerks, messengers and watchmen."

Whats more, Lincoln believed that many employees in the War Department and other agencies couldn't be trusted to remain loyal to the Union. So he took a highly unusual procurement approach. "With the Cabinet's unanimous consent," Goodwin writes, "he directed [Treasury Secretary Salmon P.] Chase to dispense millions of dollars to a small number of trusted private individuals to negotiate and sign contracts that would mobilize the military. Acting 'without compensation,' the majority of these men did their utmost under the circumstances."

Now that's outsourcing.