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Economic
- Northern troops blocked Southern
ports so no imports can be made. There
was little food, clothes among the South.
- Many women gave up their little food
as ration for CSA soldiers.
- Women struggling to feed families robbed storehouses
across the South
- Formerly patriotic women needed to raid plantations,
carry off all they can to feed families
- Women made clothes from tableclothes, curtains
bedsheets for families
- Many were without shoes for familiies
"We have nothing to eat in the house but a bit of meal"
- Virginia Woman
"A loaf of bread is a little enough for the government to give us after it
has taken all our men"
-Richmond Woman
Emotional
- Southern
women lived in fear of slave rebellion: government left some men behind to ease it
- As need for men on battlefield grew, Confederate States of America (CSA) took these men into battle and away
from home-->women lived in fear again
- Biggest fear of confed. women was proximity to northern forces
- Majority of all fighting took place in the south, which was a major cause of anxiety
- Seeing their children starve for the CSA to survive caused major grief
Women forced to do men's work and run homestead
- Big compromise because propriety was held
in high esteem to the extreme in the South
- Women within miles of a battlefield took
in sick, wounded CSA soldiers to nurse willingly
Compromised
their family wealth, home goods, time and safety to support their men and the CSA
“God forgive us that ours is a monstrous system, like the patriarchs
of old, live all in one house with their wives and their concubines and the mulattos that you see exactly resemble the white
children. All the time they seem to think themselves patterns, models of husbands and fathers.”
--Mary Chesnut
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