Chapter 18: Texas & the Civil War

Section 4: The Texas Home Front

Bellwork

•How might the Civil war have affected

civilians?

•How do you think Unionists were

treated?

The Wartime Economy & the Draft

• Texas suffered less than other Confederate states

• Goods became scarce & expensive:

– Paper

– Medicine

– Coffee

The Wartime Economy & the Draft

• Texans adapted

• Farmers grew less cotton and more corn and wheat

• Slaveholders from other states sent their slaves to Texas to prevent them from being freed

The Wartime Economy & the Draft

•Women & children ran plantations

•Women worked to support the war

The Wartime Economy & the Draft

Gov. Francis Lubbock (1861-1863) Gov. Pendleton Murrah (1861-1865)

The Wartime Economy & the Draft

•April 1862: Confederate Congress enacted a draft

•Draft—law that was unpopular because some people received exemptions

The Wartime Economy & the Draft

•White males 18-35

•Later broadened to 17-50

The Wartime Economy & the Draft

•Exemptions:

–Certain jobs

–Buy way out of service or provide substitute

Unionists in Texas

•Confederate draft received opposition from Unionists

•Most joined war effort, but some refused to fight

•Unionists viewed as potentially dangerous traitors

Unionists in Texas

•Martial law—kind of rule sometimes established in parts of Texas that were Unionist

Unionists in Texas• Some Unionists violently attacked:

– August 1862: 60 Germans Texans attacked when fleeing to Mexico to escape draft

– 50 Germans hanged in Central Texas when they organized to protest war

– Oct. 1862: 40 suspected Unionists hung in the “Great Hanging” in Gainesville

Illustration appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Newspaper February 20, 1864

Problems for Unionists in Texas

Effects on Unionists