I do see your point Edward and I can understand there was some concern. My own thoughts on the relationship problems came, for the most part, because of Reconstruction. Lincoln's killing did us no favors and the entire South paid the price. If the men were that worried that there were a credible threat from the slaves to their family and home why would they have ever left to go fight a war? I understand that there may have been an overseer or supervisor at ones plantation or business but they still left their family. At some point, there was a lot of shifting of locations for a family, to neighbors or other kin but it was because the Yankee's were coming or had already taken every thing they had.

Pam