Virginia's Private War: Feeding Body and Soul in the Confederacy, 1861-1865 (review)

I78CIVIL WAR HISTORY Hyde's planters fared no better. His "slaveholding elite" seems to encompass all who owned slaves, and their power swings bewilderingly from "absolute" (88) to "always . . . precarious" (190). Distinctions and connections between the delta planters and those in the piney-woods are equally confused, vacillating between empathy and enmity without adequate explanation. Hyde's formula of planter exploitation ignores key factors that formed the core of Louisiana's antebellum political experience. He denies the importance ofAmerican unity prior to 1845, disregards the endemic hostility between New Orleans and the country parishes, and ignores personalities as well as the influence of parties and factional divisions. Contradictions and generalizations compound omissions. Examples include inaccurate census figures based on 3-percent samples in sparsely populated parishes; an alleged colonial legacy dominated by various desperadoes who somehow managed to weaken unionism during the Civil War; and a tenaciously independent, but apparently homogeneous population, who ran amuck in the postwar period. Evidence does not indicate that residents demonstrated any greater commitment to honor and individual liberty than any other rural Southerners. Formula history invariable controls and misdirects evidence. Hyde capably chronicles conflicts that developed into personal and family feuds in the postwar period. Although he failed to place the piney-woods within the context of a time when Louisiana became a byword for violence and corruption in the nation , he provided sound evidence to explain the feuds. The study is seriously marred by his persistent attempts to force a pattern and identify the roots of this violence in earlier times. That planter domination was responsible for Hyde's Jeffersonianism gone awry is dubious at best. Carolyn E. De Latte McNeese State University Virginia 's Private War: Feeding Body andSoul in the Confederacy, 1861-1865. By William Blair. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. viii, 206. $32.50.) Recipient of the Nevins Prize for dissertations, this compact work re-examines whether domestic strife led to the Confederacy's defeat. By focusing on a single state, William Blair provides a perspective that broader national studies have been unable to achieve. Further, while he draws on sources from throughout all of Virginia, Blair particularly concentrates on those from Albemarle, Augusta, and Campbell Counties. Following a chronological format, the book's four central chapters divide the war into four stages, beginning with April ofeach year of the conflict and ending with April of the following year. Relying on letters sent by residents of these threeVirginia communities to the Confederate secretary of war, Blair begins his discussion of the first full year of the war by including a statistical analysis (table 2.1) that identifies how the local concerns of the residents were shaped book reviews179 around labor needs, military questions, and personal security matters. He argues that the "shift in authority from community autonomy toward more centralized decision making" took place during this initial period ofthe conflict (54). April 1862 to April 1863, according to Blair, was characterized by a "growing sense of injustice" as civilians grew discontented by food shortages, the wealthy hiring substitutes, and rising commodity prices. Focusing again on the three communities, Blair analyzes (table 3.1) the leading causes of military exemptions . He concludes that substitution, the overwhelming form of exemption , was not viewed critically by the lower segments of society who "otherwise had little opportunity to earn comparable money," as much as $2,000, from this practice (59-60). Where Blair, like many previous writers, carefully delineates the growing privations of this year, he differs in his conclusion that "the picture was by no means bleak." He finds that "unhappiness with the government did not overlap with disenchantment with the cause," particularly since "the success of Lee's army made continued sacrifice seem worthwhile" and allowed a "fragile stasis" to exist (80). During the third year of the war, Blair claims, "Momentum had swung toward turning the war into more of a rich man's fight," as officials "began to pay more attention to the needs of small slave owners, non-slave-owning farmers, and soldiers' families" (81). Blair highlights the military-related legislation passed by the Confederate Congress between December 1863 and February 1864, especially the "Fifteen-Negro Law...