Their Faltering Footsteps: Hardships Suffered by the Confederate Civilians on the Homefront in the American Civil War of 1861-1865

It is the purpose of this study to reveal that the morale of the southern civilians was an important factor in determining the fall of the Confederacy. At the close of the Civil War, the South was exhausted and weak, with only limited supplies to continue their defense. The Confederacy might have been rallied by the determination of its people, but they lacked such determination, for the hardships and grief they endured had turned their cause into a meaningless struggle. Therefore, the South fell because its strength depended upon the will of its population.\ud This study is based on accounts by contemporaries in diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and journals, and it reflects their reaction to the collapse of homefront morale