BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Bitter Fruits of Bondage, Armstead L. Robinson:

An interesting take on the failure of the Confederacy. Robinson writes about the conflict between the Planter Class, owners of slaves, and the yeoman class, non-slaveholders who lived mostly in the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Although there were many more Southerners who were not hot for war, and who were drawn into the war by calls for States Rights, and the desire not to be dominated by Washington, it was the failure of Jefferson Davis, to hold the Planter Class, men of privilege to the wheel. They were exempted from serving on the grounds that they had to stay home and protect their property(the slaves). In the meantime, the yeomen soldiers saw that it was a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight."

Desertions and evasion of service were rampant. In 1863 and 1864 from 1/3 to 1/2 of the CSA had deserted or was evading. It got to the point where the weight of slavery was in itself dragging the Confederacy down.

Slaves struggled for freedom. (Planters wouldn't even "lend" slaves to the war effort. White yeoman struggled to defend themselves from subjugation to what they saw as political slavery. the Confederate government had to rely on increasing draconian forms of coercion; and the Confederacy melted away.

The interests of the slave holding minority were in direct opposition to that of the slaves (of course) and to the interests of the non-slave holding majority of free citizens of the South, the white non-slave holding yeomanry.