From the book "The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape" By Richardson

[In a hotel office, two well-dressed southerners were discussing the omnipresent topic. One of them said:

"We shall have no war."

"Yes, we shall," replied the other. "The Yankees are going to fight for a while; but it will make no difference to us. We have got copperas breeches enough to carry this war through. None of the black breeches will have to shoulder muskets!"

The reader should understand that the clothing of the working whites was colored with a dye in which copperas was the chief ingredient; while, of course, the upper, slaveholding classes, wore "customary suits of solemn black." This was a very pregnant sentence, conveying in a few words the belief of those Rebels who instigated and impelled the war.]