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Summary

This chapter takes a dual approach to the subject of Confederate conscription. Its first half analyzes the policy from a political and intellectual perspective, positing that the expansion and tightening of conscription across the war reveals how an ardent strain of Confederate nationalism came to inform both policy and fundamental ideas about what it meant to be a citizen. As more and more men were called upon to enter southern armies and fight against an enemy that was increasingly willing to lay the hard hand of war upon the South, military service came to be interpreted as a fundamental obligation for able-bodied white men. The second half provides a more grassroots account of how conscription and exemption worked in the South Carolina upcountry. It argues that, while the exemption process was unquestionably influenced by class privilege as wealthy and well-connected South Carolinians could use their financial and social capital to evade military service in ways that their poorer neighbors simply could not, this did not cause a widespread rejection of the Confederacy.

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3 - “The Time for Conducting This War Leisurely Has Passed”

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3 - “The Time for Conducting This War Leisurely Has Passed”

Summary