Confederate Home Front: Montgomery during the Civil War - Softcover

Rogers Jr, William Warren

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081731153X ISBN 13: 9780817311537

Publisher: University Alabama Press, 2001

Synopsis

With this superbly written, meticulously researched, and concisely argued study, Rogers has helped deepen our understanding of the Confederate civilian experience.

Drawing from a wealth of historic documents and personal papers, William Warren Rogers, Jr., provides a fascinating and detailed political, economic, social, and commercial history of Montgomery from 1860 to 1865. His account begins with an examination of daily life in the city before the war began-how slaves outnumbered whites, how an unvarnished frontier atmosphere prevailed on the streets despite citizens' claims to refinement, how lush crops of corn and cotton grew in fields right up to the city limits, and how class divisions were distinct and immovable.

Rogers arranges his material topically, covering the events that led to the decision for secession and Montgomery's heady days as the Confederacy's first capital; the industrialization of the city's war effort as it became a hub of activity and served as a military post; the city's business patterns and administration as it attempted to promote the Confederacy and defend itself from federal forces; and the plight of the small group of Unionists who inhabited Montgomery through the war. Rogers concludes with chapters examining the situation in Montgomery as the Confederacy unraveled and the city fell to Union troops.

The Montgomery experience offers a microcosm of life on the Confederate home front and demonstrates that citizens generally experienced the same hopes, deprivations, and tragedies that other Southerners did at this time. Rogers's well-written, comprehensive history of the wartime city makes an original contribution to Civil War homefront and community studies that should appeal to general readers and scholars alike.

About this title

About the Author

William Warren Rogers Jr., is Associate Professor of History at Gainesville College, Georgia.

From Library Journal

In his new work, Rogers (Black Belt Scalawag: Charles Hays and the Southern Republicans in an Era of Reconstruction, LJ 8/93) provides an engaging account of Montgomery, AL, as the Confederacy's first capital (February to May 1861) and major rebel subsistence depot and railroad nexus. Rogers considers such aspects of Montgomery life as the effectiveness of city governments; the nature and extent of the contract work done by its businessmen and artisans for the Confederacy; the municipal constabulary's attempts to keep public order, control crime, and prevent price-gouging and hoarding; the spectrum of bawdy and respectable wartime entertainment; the hardships endured by the city's women; the contributions to the city's defense made by impressed slaves; and the charities undertaken by benevolent and interfaith societies. Rogers devotes an intriguing chapter to the plight of Union sympathizers. The final sections portray a city locked within a disintegrating nation and ripe for the taking. This book is crisply written, appropriately illustrated, and painstakingly researchedAa fine effort, recommended for large public and academic libraries.AJohn Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Athens
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 081731153X
• ISBN 13: 9780817311537
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224