Thanks Bryan, I appreciate the kind words. By the way, have you read "Plain Folk's Fight: The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia". I really think you'd like this one. It makes it clear why the middle and lower class Southerners were not only participants, but perhaps more zealous about their views of the war than the Planter class in areas in or near large slave populations. Even though these folks were generally not slave owners, or small-scale owners at best, they saw the freeing of the slaves as a threat to their subsistence existence and feared the crime and mixing of races, which they felt would more heavily impact their communities. If you ever want to refute the saying "Rich man's war, poor man's fight", which many use to describe how poor, ill informed Southerners were drawn into the war by the upper class, this is your book.

It is well-researched and sourced from primary documents, letters and diaries. For anyone who wants to understand the views of many of the lower economic classes in the South during the war, this is an outstanding book.

Jim