54 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



feminine direction. Fleming says that one could ride for 

 days through the Alabama Black Belt without seeing 

 an able-bodied white man, but the production of the 

 plantation was never higher. 31 The managerial ability of 

 the women of the plantation, the resourcefulness of the 

 Negro artisans, and the faithfulness of slaves in the 

 fields have been deemed equally worthy of comment. 

 The difficulty in feeding the Confederate Army was not 

 one of production but one of commerce and transporta- 

 tion. Sherman's march through the hinterland was well 

 advised as a military measure in that he found an abun- 

 dance of stores and supplies, products of the plantation, 

 to destroy. 



It is useless to ask what would have been the social 

 and economic readjustments in the plantation forced 

 by the abolition of slavery without war and reconstruc- 

 tion. Economic disorganization and social demoralization 

 were bound to occur, but they were doubly accentuated 

 by the shock of war and the deadly conflict of recon- 

 struction. In the combatant areas slavery was destroyed 

 by the friction of the struggle itself, and in the presence 

 of the Union armies the plantation system went down 

 like a house of cards. Its bonds were dissolved; its la- 

 borers deserted "when freedom cried out," and became 

 hangers-on around army posts and camp followers of 

 Union armies. 32 



A period of readjustment, a brief hiatus in the cotton 

 system, followed emancipation. The cotton laborer had 

 been given a free status but no higher economic or social 

 standing. He had acquired mobility but no more security. 



81 Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, p. 209. 

 32 For description of this period see Walter L. Fleming, The 

 Freedmen's Savings Bank, chap. I. 



