"federal power was not being applied in a manner they thought fair to their interests, in my opinion, and in their own declarations of secession."
John,
We have that saying,"follow the money" and I think this holds true on this subject. As it was said, it was a rich mans war and a poor mans fight. That is why even tho the poor whites wanted to join up with some real gusto, by the end of 1861, it was not looking to good to them then. If you follow the rate of desertion in the southern army, as time went by it became greater and greater, not due to cowardice, but due to the fact that the promises that were made to them by the leaders and the planters to take care of their families was not being kept. That is why as time went by there were more and more food riots in the cities. If I were a soldier and I was getting letters from my wife about how hard it was and how hungry my children and she were, I would be heading home also. The book I made reference to in a previous post really touches on all of this with lots of notes to verify.
Hope to see your next post.
Frank
By the way, this thread is relative to the site.