War’s Impact on Southern Economy

STAUNTON SPECTATOR, The Uses of Economy (1862)

The war’s impact on the home front was felt especially hard in the South, where most of the fighting took place. In this newspaper article from the November 1862 Staunton Spectator, Virginians are urged to practice economy at home. The article alludes to the Union blockade of Virginia’s James River and coast, part of Lincoln’s strategy announced in 1861 to encircle the Confederacy and starve it of resources. A year and a half into the war, the effect of the blockade and the “presence of the enemy” were clearly felt.

There is every reason to believe, from present appearances, says the Lynchburg Virginian, that we shall be short of supplies for one army and people next year. The short crop of wheat and corn for the past year, the fatality that has attended the hog crop; the waste superinduced by large standing armies; the drought which has retarded the Fall operations of farmers in getting their wheat sown, and the embarrassments that the agricultural portion of our citizens have suffered, in consequence of the presence of the enemy, and the demand made upon them by our Governments, State and Confederate, will we fear, be manifest in a short supply of bread and meat next year. It behooves us therefore to observe the greatest frugality and economy in the use of what we have. It matters not that we have a plethora of money, or that there be an abundance elsewhere to supply our lack, when we are excluded from the markets of the world, and are compelled to rely upon what we have within ourselves. Money cannot produce one grain of corn, or increase by one pound, our quantity of meat. Our supply will be limited by the circumstances that surround us, and to that, whether much or little, we must contine [sic] ourselves. We cannot increase it by the ordinary means of commercial intercourse. Under these circumstances, we are called upon to husband our resources of bread and meat, by the diminution, so far as practicable, of consumption. We should stint ourselves, and those who have spread a bounteous board heretofore, should, no matter what their means may be, endeavor to do with less. Thousands of our gallant soldiers who were nursed in the lap of plenty, and brought up in the midst of affluence, have known what it was to go for days together without a meal: — and cannot we, to increase the stores that may be necessary for their sustenance in the field, endure some little of their patient self-denial? We can do with much less than we consume, and instead of priding ourselves upon spreading an ample board, groaning with every luxury, we should feel a sense of reproach for indulging in such improprieties. This is no time for feasting and high carnival, but for earnest self-denial, and abounding patriotism and charity. Our suffering countrymen, and the dependent families they have committed to our care whilst they are fighting our battles, demand that we appropriate less to ourselves, and more to those who would be glad to gather the crumbs that fall from many of our tables. The season, the condition of the country, the wants of those to whom we have referred, and the prospect before us, all call upon us, trumpet-tongued, to forego every species of luxury during the existence of this war.

“The Uses of Economy,” Staunton Spectator, November 4, 1862 (Valley of the Shadow project, University of Virginia Library), http://vshadow.vcdh.virginia.edu.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS