Can I read A Rich Man's War, A Poor Man's Fight: Desertion Of Alabama Troops From The Confederate Army Desertion Of Alabama Troops From The Confederate Army on EtoBox?

A Rich Man's War, A Poor Man's Fight: Desertion Of Alabama Troops From The Confederate Army Desertion Of Alabama Troops From The Confederate Army by Bessie Martin is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is A Rich Man's War, A Poor Man's Fight: Desertion Of Alabama Troops From The Confederate Army Desertion Of Alabama Troops From The Confederate Army about?

This book argues that Confederate soldiers left their posts in significant numbers due largely to the prevalence of poverty on the home front. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, many men in Alabama enthusiastically enlisted. After these husbands, fathers, and brothers-all family breadwinners-marched off to duty, the number of indigent families in the state began to rise dramatically. Inflation, lack of transportation, a drastically decreased labor force, war taxes, and enemy invasion all created an increasingly desperate economic situation, especially in less affluent northern and southeastern sections of the state. In some places, women and children were reported to be near starvation, bread riots erupted, and begging was common. As soldiers became more and more distressed about these developments at home, waves of desertions occurred. Even social relief efforts made by state and local governments in the form of the Military Aid Society, the Samaritan Society, and the Citizens Relief Association did little to deter the cyclical exodus of fighting men from Confederate units. Southern leaders considered desertion the chief cause of serious military defeats, including those at At

Author

Bessie Martin

Publisher

Birmingham Public Library Press : University of Alabama Press

Published

2003

Language

EN

ISBN

9780817350017

Subjects

History, Humanities