FYI, one of the arguments against using slaves as Confederate soldiers that appeared in the 1865 newspapers was that if that were done, there would be no one left to plant and harvest the crops and that the resulting food shortage would be far more damaging than Grant. Indeed, there was a shortage of food already among the Confederate troops, and Grant's soldiers gave them food after the surrender.
Sounds like a pretty thin excuse to me. By 1865 there was very little left of the confederacy to plant anything in.
Indeed, there was a shortage of food already among the Confederate troops, and Grant's soldiers gave them food after the surrender.
The shortage of food and supplies is a popular myth. The fact of the matter is that the confederacy never suffered from a lack of food, and for the most part sufficient supplies were available. What it did suffer from was a poor transportation network and an inept commissary department, headed, as might be expected, by a friend of Jefferson Davis. When John Breckenridge took over the war department in January 1865 he fired the man and replaced him with a competent administrator. During the last months of the war, Breckenridge had no problem accumulating sufficient food and forage for the army but remained hampered by a transportation network that didn't allow him to get the stuff from point A to point B.