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9 2 The American Civil WarThe southern home front
In many ways, the Confederate home front
presented a stark contrast to the North. With
its capital heavily invested in land and slaves
and lacking a sophisticated financial
infrastructure, the Confederacy struggled to
meet the demands of a massive war. Like the
North, it resorted to three options to pay for
the conflict. Congress enacted a series of
national taxes, beginning with a modest
direct property tax in the summer of 1861
and eventually adding others on personal
income, consumer goods and wholesalers'
News of the bread riots spread quickly to the
North, where this cartoon conveyed a very negative
impression of the women in Richmond. Many
middle- and upper-class Confederates also commented
dismissively about the rioters, among them a
Richmonder who called them 'a heterogeneous
crowd of Dutch, Irish, and free negroes' bent on
looting businesses at random. (Author's collection)profits. As a group, these taxes yielded only
about 5 percent of the government's
needs. An array of bonds provided another
35 percent of revenues. Treasury notes
accounted for the remaining 60 percent and,
as with paper money during the American