There's even more reason for loss of property value in the Southern states. The cash crop, cotton, had been devalued tremendously. The U.K. was importing cotton from India by the end of the War and that was one reason they declined to intervene militarily. The agricultural economy in the South could never be the same again for that reason alone. By the end of the 19th Century, many farmers in Texas and Louisiana had turned to harvesting trees and some made a whole lot of money. Lumber and oil made a lot of millionaires.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/KK/fki33.html