num_pages: 303
description: This penetrating portrait of behind-the-lines activity in a vital Confederate state is based largely upon contemporary accounts found in personal letters, diaries, and newspapers, not from highly colored, after-the-fact memory. In addition to highlighting the effect of shortages and conflict among various levels of authority. Confederate Homefront also reveals new "freedom" experienced by slaves, free blacks, women and teenagers...individuals who used wartime pressures to personal advantage.Somewhat strangely, South Carolinians were most unified at the moment when they decided to secede from the Union. Yet within weeks, even before blood was shed. fire-eaters were predicting doom. Soon the federal blockade, reverses in the Mississippi Valley. and controversial policies such as a manpower draft and tax-in-kind gave birth to both class and regional animosities. Even deeper divisions were created when much of the state remained untouched by actual warfare until Sherman's bummers arrived in 1885. The result was a complex, topsy-turvy inland kingdom filled with Confederate faithful, refugees, deserters, Rhett Butlers bent upon speculation and profit, scores yearning for peace at any price, and men and women of both races determined to have one hellava good time amid chaos and impending defeat.
language: English
title: Southern Homefront: South Carolina, 1861-1865
titlecomplete: Southern Homefront: South Carolina, 1861-1865
ratings_count: 2
publisher: Summerhouse Pr