War Stuff
The Struggle for Human and Environmental Resources in the American Civil War

Focuses on the intense struggle over human and material resources between armies and civilians in the Civil War South.

Joan E. Cashin (Author)

9781108420167, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 August 2018

270 pages, 24 b/w illus.
23.6 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.49 kg

'… at once a textured and nuanced read, and an elegantly and convincingly argued book … This wide-ranging book brings together diverse sources from a broad range of contexts - letters, diaries, legal records, newspaper accounts, government claims, and material sources - to detail the great environmental and human impact of the Civil War. It continues to broaden the lens of focus away from battles and conflict to consider the lived experience of the Civil War and its aftermath, especially the shared experiences of depravation of secessionist and Union sympathizers living in the South.' Sarah Anne Carter, The American Historical Review

In this path-breaking work on the American Civil War, Joan E. Cashin explores the struggle between armies and civilians over the human and material resources necessary to wage war. This war 'stuff' included the skills of white Southern civilians, as well as such material resources as food, timber, and housing. At first, civilians were willing to help Confederate or Union forces, but the war took such a toll that all civilians, regardless of politics, began focusing on their own survival. Both armies took whatever they needed from human beings and the material world, which eventually destroyed the region's ability to wage war. In this fierce contest between civilians and armies, the civilian population lost. Cashin draws on a wide range of documents, as well as the perspectives of environmental history and material culture studies. This book provides an entirely new perspective on the war era.

Introduction
1. Old South
2. People
3. Sustenance
4. Timber
5. Habitat
6. Breakdown
7. 1865 and after.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], American Civil War [HBWJ], History of the Americas [HBJK]