User:Reilles22/Isaac Slaughter

Isaac Slaughter was interviewed by Gertha Couric in association with the Federal Writers Project. The interview took place on November 17, 1939

Isaac Slaughter was born on March 15 1845 in Greensboro Georgia. He has a sister named Doshas and she is one and a half years older than Isaac, she lives in Dadeville Alabama.  Before Isaac Slaughter moved to Alabama during his adult life he grew up in Georgia.  He came from a poor white family that was struggling to make it by, and growing up in Georgia during this time was even more hard due to the Civil War.  The Civil war mainly took place in Georgia and because this was the hub of the war there were many things that went into a war taking place.  The people in America, especially the people who lived in Georgia on the front of that war had to deal with paying for the war.  Most of people's salaries and food went to the troops who fought in the war, so there was little income and food for the people to have during this time.  The Civil War was a reason the Great Depression took place, because all of the country's money was going to the war so many people were living in poverty and not making it by living.  Isaac Slaughter was lucky to have made it out of where he came from, He found himself living in Alabama years later with a good job and married to a women who was wealthy because she was getting money from the government because her husband was killed in the war.In Alabama he would always be seen with ragged clothes and blood on them from the butchering.  He got married to a woman named Taura and they live in a very nice little four room frame house.  The reason they had such a nice house and comfortable life was because Taurus' ex-husband died during the war and she got money from the government.  The social issue that Americans were going through during the Civil War was the The Great Depression, Americans didn't have any money because all there earnings were going to provide for the war food, water, ammunition, and guns.

The Civil War in Georgia

The Civil War was a big reason why the United States went into The Great Depression. ¹ Wars cost a lot of money and where money comes from in the people. During the Civil War most people in the United States had to take pay cuts in order to pay for the war. The peoples salary's were going to the war in order to pay for food, water, and other war materials. The people who suffered most from the war were the working class people in Georgia because they lived on the front of the war. ²” People in Georgia were working solly to pay for the war so all the money that they would use to provide for there family's were going straight to the soilders so that they would be able to fight the war. The war didnt just affect the lower class, it affected all classes across the country. The social classes were so spread out during the war because the troops needed food, water, and other necessities in order to fight the war so you could say that the lower class was suffering greatly because a lot of materials and necessities were going to the war and the lower class would not be able to pay for it.

Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat

The Civil War caused poverty across the country in the United States causing the country to go into The Great Depression. The Great Depression was mainly caused by the Civil War. ³” The Civil War affected all social classes from rich to poor, but it mostly affected the poor. The poor was suffering the most because they still had to pay for the war, although it didn't affect the wealthy as much because they have the money to spend. The poor who needed money to pay for the necessaties in life such as food, water, and a place to live, they were not able to do that because all the money they made went to the war.

Commerce, and Race in Post-Civil War Georgia

Post Civil War the economic race was spread throughout the south during the Civil War, there were many white people who lived in the south during the Civil War that were poor and wealthy and many African American people who were also poor and very little who were wealthy.⁴ Pre Civil war most African Americans who lived in the south were slaves and were poor and mostly the white people were the wealthy people, but there were still white people who were slaves. ⁵” After the Civil War it basically let the country start fresh and gave everyone in no matter what your skin color was a new opportunity to succeed in life because the economy was so bad so there were more poor than wealthy people and most people could not afford to have slaves any more. This gave slaves and lower class the opportunity to goto school or learn how to read so that they would be able to be a wealthy successful person because after the Civil War mostly everyone was equally economically speaking, so it was a chance to start over.

1. ↑John D. Fowler "Breaking the Heartland"
2. ↑Ibid
3. ↑David Williams " Class, Caste, and Confederate "
4. ↑ Russell Duncan. " Entrepreneur For Equality"
5. ↑Ibid

 Breaking the Heartland: The Civil War in Georgia. Eds. John D. Fowler and David B. Parker. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-88146-240-1, 246 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/504817/pdf

Williams, David. Rich Man's War : Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley, University of Georgia Press, 1999. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ugapress.org/book/9780820320335/rich-mans-war/

“ Entrepreneur For Equality: Governor Rufus Bullock, Commerce, and Race in Post-Civil War Georgia. By Russell Duncan. (Athens: University of Georgia Press” https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/82/1/258/736920?redirectedFrom=fulltext

“ Paul Collier, ‘Doing well out of war: an economic perspective’, in Mats Berdal and David Malone, eds, Greed and grievance: economic agendas in civil wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner/International Peace Academy, 2000), “ http://www.guillaumenicaise.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/berdal-greed-and-grievances.pdf