Chapter 18: Texas & the Civil WarSection 4: The Texas Home Front

Thinking Question

•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