Mississippi in the Civil War: The Home Front (review)

Timothy B. Smith's Mississippi in the Civil War focuses on the state's home front. Smith imagines the story of the Mississippi home front as a wagon wheel. The secession convention occupied the center hub of the wheel, its spokes comprised the major areas of state function, and its outer rim represented the common people of the state. Smith primarily positions his work vis-à-vis Percy L. Rainwater's Mississippi: Storm Center of Secession, 1856-1861 and John K. Bettersworth's Confederate Mississippi: The People and Policies of a Cotton State in Wartime. These books, published in 1938 and 1943, neglect significant topics now considered standard in any home-front study, including the experiences of women, blacks, and Unionists. Smith intends his work to serve as a complement to these earlier works, filling the gaps in the story of the Mississippi home front. He offers a "dual paradigm," arguing that defeat in Mississippi emerged from both military conquest by the Union army and a loss of will on the home front, without expressly prioritizing one over the other (3). In doing so, he sees both external and internal factors at work and, in this way, avoids becoming mired in this historiographical debate.

In the first part of his book, Smith explores the state during the secession crisis and subsequent war, the hub and the spokes of the Mississippi home front. Chapter 1 provides a brief treatment of secession, touching upon the proceedings of the convention itself and emphasizing the role of slavery in motivating secessionists. Chapter 2 covers the political system, proceeding from legislative session to legislative session and examining a shift from partial to complete mobilization. Chapter 3 focuses on the enlistment of soldiers for the Confederate war effort, detailing the different units formed in the state and describing the effect of their deaths and injuries on morale. Chapter 4 addresses the destruction of the state's infrastructure, identifying both Union and Confederate forces as the culprits. Chapter 5, the strongest chapter of the book's first half, examines the state's economy, demonstrating the devastation that occupation, speculation, inflation, and taxation wrought upon the Mississippi home front. The first part of the book concentrates almost entirely on the political elite, specifically the governor and the state legislators. Smith's main point in each of his chapters here is that each aspect of the state—its political system, military power, infrastructure, and economic policy—fell apart. Smith particularly identifies the Union invasions of 1863 rather than the twin defeats of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863 as the turning point of the war in Mississippi.

In the book's second part, Smith addresses various segments of the civilian population, the outer ring of the Mississippi home front. Chapters 6 through 9 target Confederate men, dissenters (including white unionists, disaffected Confederates, and anti-Confederates), slaves, and women and children. Readers should integrate the discussion of these groups with Smith's treatment of the political system, military mobilization, material devastation, and economic problems in the earlier chapters for a full portrait of the Mississippi home front. The chapter on slaves is the most state-centered, especially in its attention to Union and Confederate policies concerning the institution. The structure of the book does lead to some overlap in coverage; for instance, readers interested in the experiences and perspectives of disaffected Confederates should also consult the chapter on Confederates. Those concerned with women should also check the chapter on Confederate men and slaves. Smith concludes his book with a chapter on the state's religious, educational, and literary efforts. Smith's contention in the chapters in the second half of his book is that each group either gradually lost the will to fight, as in the case of Confederates and disaffected Confederates, or lacked the will to fight, as in the case of white and black Unionists and anti-Confederates; thus, they collectively contributed to Confederate defeat.

In...