Caleb Huse (February 11, 1831 – March 12, 1905) was a major in the Confederate States Army, acting primarily as an arms procurement agent and purchasing specialist during the American Civil War.

In September 1860, while on extended leave of absence from the U.S. Army, Huse was selected by the University of Alabama to oversee the adoption of the military system of West Point into their own curriculum.

Huse accepted the offer and remained at the university until the outbreak of war, officially resigning his commission from the U.S. Army in February 1861, just months prior to the attack on Fort Sumter.

[3] Huse's appointment as Commandant caused some consternation for many of the students at the university, not only due to his strict disciplinary techniques (for which he had been hired), but also because of his origins in Massachusetts and the general Southern sentiments of the time.

Huse's first contract was with the London Armoury Company, where he identified, outbid, and outmaneuvered Union arms agents such as George Schuyler and Marcellus Hartley to secure the bid.

While living in Europe, Huse worked closely with a network of Confederate agents and representatives, most notably S. Isaac, Campbell & Company who extended him credit and arranged for his purchases.

Others included William L. Yancey, Walker Fearn, Pierre Adolphe Rost, Ambrose Dudley Mann, L. Q. C. Lamar, Pierre-Paul Pecquet du Bellet, Edward C. Anderson, and James D. Bulloch, with money funneled to them from the Confederacy through Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool and its American counterparts.

During the first years of the Civil War the money for arms purchase was readily available and Huse had little trouble securing large contracts, seldom needing to rely on the traditional use of government credit, which the CSA, as a belligerent nation, did not possess.

The purchase of weapons without the use of credit only made European manufactures more eager to do business with the Confederacy, and the leaky Union blockade served as only a minor problem until the final year of the war.

However, one of Huse's larger contracts was with Austria, from whom he purchased 100,000 high quality rifles of the latest Austrian pattern, and ten six-piece batteries of field artillery, harnessed and ready for service with accompanying ammunition.

Austria had decided to switch to gun-cotton, thus making the gunpowder rifles undesirable, and thereby allowing Huse to purchase modernized weapons in mass quantities, something which the South desperately needed.

He assisted on many occasions with the transfer of clandestine communications between officials in Europe and those in the Confederacy, including the necessary planning and organization required by blockade runners for breaking the Union lines, as well as the purchasing of vessels to make the runs.

[7] Huse would go on to establish the Highland Falls Academy, also known as "The Rocks", a military preparatory school designed for young men who planned to attend West Point.