Civil War Notes
1. Examine the social, political, and economic impact of civil war on the South, its values, and its people.
Social:
* Increased urban growth * Cities grew because of the shift towards manufacturing, growth of bureaucratic agencies to oversee manufacturing, RR, shipping, tax collection. * Urban growth resulted in the expansion of construction jobs, transportation developments * Changed roles for women * Headed households and performed men’s work * Managed or cultivated fields * Women working as clerks, a traditionally male job, especially in Confederate bureaucracy * Schoolteachers * Found role in the war effort as nurses * Mass poverty, food shortages * Mass poverty caused by runaway inflation * Enactment of tax-in-kind as a result * Stirred class conflict when planters refused to cooperate * Families suffered because primary breadwinner was drafted * Class conflict * Yeomen are waking up to the concept of class-consciousness. They are asked to sacrifice more than the plantation class southerners (“Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”). * Government policies favoring elite: * Planters can be excused from conscription if they own more than 20 slaves (twenty-slave law) * A draftee can be excused if he can hire a substitute * Wealthy are sacrificing luxuries while the poor are giving up necessities * Planters refused to pay taxes * Reality of war challenged southern sense of individuality with strict military discipline and deprivation. Political: * Centralization of political power * This time of crisis witnessed a dramatic increase in the executive power in the Confederacy. Davis imposed martial law and suspended habeas corpus * The first conscription law (draft)
Social:
* Increased urban growth * Cities grew because of the shift towards manufacturing, growth of bureaucratic agencies to oversee manufacturing, RR, shipping, tax collection. * Urban growth resulted in the expansion of construction jobs, transportation developments * Changed roles for women * Headed households and performed men’s work * Managed or cultivated fields * Women working as clerks, a traditionally male job, especially in Confederate bureaucracy * Schoolteachers * Found role in the war effort as nurses * Mass poverty, food shortages * Mass poverty caused by runaway inflation * Enactment of tax-in-kind as a result * Stirred class conflict when planters refused to cooperate * Families suffered because primary breadwinner was drafted * Class conflict * Yeomen are waking up to the concept of class-consciousness. They are asked to sacrifice more than the plantation class southerners (“Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”). * Government policies favoring elite: * Planters can be excused from conscription if they own more than 20 slaves (twenty-slave law) * A draftee can be excused if he can hire a substitute * Wealthy are sacrificing luxuries while the poor are giving up necessities * Planters refused to pay taxes * Reality of war challenged southern sense of individuality with strict military discipline and deprivation. Political: * Centralization of political power * This time of crisis witnessed a dramatic increase in the executive power in the Confederacy. Davis imposed martial law and suspended habeas corpus * The first conscription law (draft)