"A "rich man's war, poor man's fight" can describe many a military conflict. But perhaps never in American history was it more appropriately applied than to the Confederate effort in the Civil War. In this volume, Georgia historian David Williams explains how the Confederate government's handling of the war and the very nature of Southern society negatively impacted the common soldier in the field and doomed the South to failure.". "Using General Robert E. Lee's Maryland Campaign of 1862 as a poignant case study, Williams describes how Confederate soldiers fought and died for a government that could not supply them with shoes or even feed them before battle. The same government that exempted large slave-holders from service and allowed planters to continue to grow cotton when Southern armies desperately needed food, required its soldiers to march on bleeding feet and live off green corn taken from Maryland fields.". "The same policies placed disproportionate wartime demands on soldiers' families and the common people of the South, upon whom fell the horrors of conscription, inflation, financial ruin, and starvation. For his study of the homefront, Williams examines wartime Georgia to find that Confederate actions created great hardship and fostered resentment and even outright defiance. Again, the preferential treatment accorded wealthy planters eroded already shaky support for the war among plain folk.". "When confronted with the choice of protecting their farms and families or serving a government that so neglected them, a great many Johnny Reb's went home."--BOOK JACKET.