Bitterly Divided Summary

Reading this book, Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War, has shed a new sort of light on the way that I view the Civil War. My whole life, all I’ve learned in history class after history class is that the Civil War was a war fought between the North and the South over ending slavery. However, this war was something that was so much more than that. Just from this book, I’ve learned that the Civil War wasn’t just a war that separated North and South, but also a war that caused a whole other war that we never hear about, the Civil War within the South.
It came as quite a shock to me to find out that much of the South was not supportive of the Civil War in the first place, including my own hometown of Harris County, Georgia, where it was even stated that they were “Union loving people” (10). In reality, the main people who …show more content…
It should come as no surprise that there were major tensions between slaves and their slaveholders during this time. Slaves played their own roles within this war. They began helping hide the deserters, which did not go over well with the wealthy men who were trying to draft men to fight this war for them. On top of that, these slaves decided they wanted freedom, and they were going to find a way to get it. The fear of a slave revolt grew as more white men were being sent off to the battlefields. This fear was out of good reason, because soon the slaves were beginning to lash back at their owners. While there were no big rebellions, there became a great fear in the South. The Southerners in favor of the Union began supporting the slaves, basically agreeing to help them undermine the government. Anyone who was against the Rebels began a support system with one another. Food and supplies were being shared with those who needed them, and while the Unionists in the South didn’t have the support of the government, they had the support of each