4 Home Front Introduction For those not caught up in the fighting life during the Civil War varied greatly For some people in the North life carried on largely as normal in the South the war impacted every aspect of life For many people in the South the war was an immediate experience Most of the fighting took place on Southern territory Southern cities came under direct attack A larger proportion of men were in the army so Southern women had to run farms and plantations as well as looking after families and households As the war went on the Union blockade halted overseas trade The Southern economy was devastated All sorts of commodities were in short supply from agricultural tools to basic foods Life was a struggle to survive In the North some people made huge profits by selling military equipment and supplies Among the working poor of the great Northern cities however wartime conditions This kitchen from just after the war includes a range in the center which was used for cooking as well as heating water
Introduction 5 In this illustration from 1866 a wounded soldier arrives home Family life was greatly affected by the war worsened the tensions that already existed between different ethnic groups And in both the North and the South the war had a great effect on families Many thousands of husbands fathers and sons went to war and thousands of them were killed or wounded In the South in particular there were few families that did not lose at least one person in the war This book Home Front describes how the conflict changed life for those who stayed at home in both the North and the South what they ate what they wore and how they lived It also examines some of the most influential individuals of this crucial time A timeline that runs across the bottom of the pages throughout the book traces the course of the war on the battlefield along with other developments in North America and the rest of the world At the back of the book is a Need to Know feature which will help you relate subjects to your school studies
6 Home Front Buildings and Homes The influence of mass production was clearly visible in American homes before and after the war They were often decorated in ornate styles with dark furniture and rich colors This typical house of the period was used as a hospital after the Battle of White Oak Swamp in 1862 Freed from family farms people instead worked in towns and cities A prosperous city dweller in the North might build a two-story masonry house A less well-off clerk might move his family to the new suburbs A poor family could only afford to JANUARY 2 SOUTH CAROLINA Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor is occupied by Confederate troops JANUARY 5 ALABAMA Alabama troops seize forts Morgan and Gaines giving Confederate forces control of Mobile Bay JANUARY 9 MISSISSIPPI Leaders vote to leave the Union Mississippi is the second state to join the Confederacy JANUARY 10 FLORIDA Florida leaves the Union JANUARY 11 ALABAMA Alabama leaves the Union JANUARY 15 UNITED STATES Engineer Elisha Otis invents the safety elevator 1861 march january war civil other events January JANUARY 29 UNITED STATES Kansas joins the Union as the 34th state
Buildings and Homes 7 rent a small apartment in a tenement building shared with other renters In rural areas of the North a family might build a farmhouse or occupy an older one Likewise in the Southern states a wealthy merchant in New Orleans might live in a fashionable two-story brick dwelling although most rural areas of the South had a different architecture A nonslaveholding farmer might live in a simple wooden frame house Usually people used building materials that were easily available nearby In the forested areas of the Southeast and Northeast people built wooden frame houses and log cabins In the Southwest people built houses of adobe mud bricks Interior decoration How a house appeared from the outside was a good indication of a family’s status and wealth In the same way the look of the rooms inside also gave clues to anyone who visited the home Before the mid-19th century one room usually served several purposes socializing sleeping and even eating Now rooms became specialized A hall formal parlor family parlor dining room library bedroom all had specific functions and dictated certain activities and behavior Interior decoration became popular and magazines and books giving advice on matters such as colors furniture lighting and wallpapers became essential reading for the wealthy A tenement building on the Lower East Side Manhattan illustrated in Harper’s Weekly JANUARY 19 GEORGIA Georgia votes to leave the Union JANUARY 26 LOUISIANA Louisiana becomes the sixth state to leave the Union FEBRUARY 4 ALABAMA Leaders from the South meet in the state capital Montgomery They choose Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as their president and write a constitution for the Confederate States of America FEBRUARY 7 ALABAMA MISSISSIPPI The Choctaw Indian Nation forms an alliance with the South Other Indian tribes follow later FEBRUARY UNITED STATES The first moving picture system is patented February MARCH RUSSIA Czar Alexander II abolishes serfdom a form of slavery March
