Bitterly divided

Historian David Williams, whose earlier work A People's History of the Civil War examined the conflict from the bottom up, turns his attention to the Confederacy itself. He argues that the South fought two wars at once: the familiar struggle against the Union and a hidden conflict within its own borders, which has received little scholarly attention and even less popular notice.

According to Williams, white Southerners were about as likely to oppose secession as to back it from the start, and many worked against the Confederate war effort at almost every opportunity. Conscription was extremely hard to carry out, women organized food riots to challenge Confederate authority, and for much of the war around two-thirds of the army was away from its posts, whether officially authorized or not. He also estimates that if the close to half a million Southern men who fought for the Union had instead served the Confederacy, the two sides would have been roughly equal.

The book challenges the picture of a united Southern home front and questions why the image of Confederate solidarity has proved so durable. It is aimed at readers interested in the Civil War, the Confederacy and the social history of the South.