But the elite planter class, the guys most responsible for the rebellion, fattened their waistlines and bank accounts while the poor soldiers doing the fighting for them starved. That was one of the most inexcusable features of the Confederacy.
One thing that is hard for me to understand is why Sherman had no problem feeding his men on his march to the sea while at the same time the Confederates fighting under Hood and Lee slowly starved. There was food available in the south, otherwise Sherman's troops would have starved; but that food wasn't making it to the men who were giving their last full measure (trying to fight on a handful of parched corn and a small piece of rancid bacon). I'm guessing it was a failure of civilian leadership in the South...
From what I've read the elite planter class were very much in the lead of the fight. Certainly much more so than the equivalent class turned out in the North to fight for the Union.
And it is inaccurate to say that the planter class got rich during the war. Most lost pretty much everything except perhaps their land, which some of them were able to use to slowly rebuild their wealth.
With the exception of a few speculators and blockade runners, hardly anybody got rich off the war in the South. Unlike the North, where there was a true carnival of excess and corruption.