One can look at the statistics on casualty, injury, whatever effect time and events took on the soldiers and it's a telling enough picture. The site of battles, skirmishes, run-ins and scortched earth give up another picture. It's when you get down to the civilians, the women, children and the elders, well, they all tell us nothing good was going on. It was hard. Life was hard on a regular day, worse during the 'occupation'. It didn't stop after the war and was still that way when I was a kid for some.

We read bio's and see there were still tiers in the social structure even though most of the former 'top' tier was a bit frazzled and patched. The women in Cold Mountain were probably one of the best visual examples I've seen, on film, of 'emergency managment' and 'trial by fire coping' that was the lot of thousands of women. I'd think the 'Adversity makes you strong' thought is what added the Steel to the Magnolias. They had never really gotten back on their feet and then the Great Depression set in. Not that it wasn't bad, it was just prolonging any rest period in the worry department.

My childhood best friends Grandmother lived with them and I got some real neat information. Her constant story telling was a real eye opener and gave me more information on this entire period than I got from anywhere else at that time. Grandmother was born after the CW in Selma. She was in her late 90's when she died. So I had earfulls of the 'times' from the 1870's on. Before the war, her family was on the comfortable to sort of wealthy shelf. It went downhill from there. She had photo's of the family home that had burned. The wild grape that was covering the place made for an interesting picture. I loved it but she teared up every time she looked at it.

Another book I have, The Women's War in the South, is a compiled gathering of different places, stories and family types. All were struggles though.

Pam