The Confederacy [electronic resource] : the slaveholders' failed venture / Paul D. Escott.

The Confederacy [electronic resource] : the slaveholders' failed venture / Paul D. Escott.

9781573569934 (electronic book)
9780275994099
0275994090
1573569933 (electronic book)

Santa Barbara, Calif. : Praeger, [2010]

©2010

English

1 online resource (x, 175 pages, 13 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations, maps.

E487 .E82 2010eb

973.7/13

"It was by any measure a failure. What began at Fort Sumter as a spirited defense of a homeland and a way of life ended in disaster. The connection between battlefield and home front sapped Confederate strength. More fundamentally, the privileged and overconfident elite went to war on false assumptions: that slavery would be a source of strength, that nonslaveholders would continue to sacrifice for slavery, and that women would accept the changes brought by war without serious complaint. The bid to preserve the proslavery South revealed a society whose nature was at odds with the demands of war." "Paul Escott's The Confederacy: The Slaveholders' Failed Venture offers a unique and multifaceted perspective on the United States' most pivotal and devastating conflict, examining the course of the Civil War and analyzing the perspective of the Southern elite class, which was desperate to preserve the "peculiar institution" of its slave-based economy, yet dependent on ordinary Southerners, slaves, and women to sustain the fight for them." "Against the backdrop of the war's military drama and strategic dilemmas, The Confederacy brings into sharp focus the racial, class, gender, and political conflicts that helped destabilize the Confederacy from within. Along the way, Escott shows how time and time again, the South's political and economic elite made errors that further weakened a South already facing a Union army with greater numbers and firepower." --Book Jacket.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Access limited to authorized users.

Reflections on the Civil War era.

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