The Confederate Heartland: Military and Civilian Morale in the Western Confederacy

Abstract

Bradley Clampitt’s The Confederate Heartland examines the morale of white civilians and Confederate soldiers from Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee in 1864 and 1865. By using an array of wartime letters and diaries, Clampitt claims that white Southerners in these states constructed a Confederate identity based on a shared sense of sacrifice and desire to protect their homes from invaders.