"A candid and truthful appraisal of the economic, financial, and social problems the Confederacy had to face."-Saturday Review of Literature

In this groundbreaking study, Charles W. Ramsdell maintains that deficiencies on the homefront were fundamental to the collapse of the Confederacy. The war, he argues, raised unexpected problems that the southern people were unprepared to solve. Weakened and demoralized, the civilian population could not adequately support its armies, causing the Confederacy to break down from within long before the military situation appeared desperate.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

"Stephenson's admirable Foreword and his bibliography of Ramsdell's writings give the book something of the character of a memorial volume that makes it the more welcome."-C. Vann Woodward

Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History

Charles W. Ramsdell (1877-1942) was professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Reconstruction in Texas and A School History of Texas.