War Stuff

In this prize-winning work on the American Civil War, Joan E. Cashin explores the struggle between armies and civilians over the human and environmental 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. Cashin draws on a wide range of documents, as well as the perspectives of food studies, environmental history, architectural history, and material culture studies. This book provides an entirely new perspective on the war era.