War of Another Kind A Southern Community in the Great Rebellion [Paperback]

In this book Durrill describes in graphic detail the disintegration, during the Civil War, of Southern plantation society in a North Carolina coastal county. He details struggles among planters, slaves, yeoman farmers, and landless white laborers, as well as a guerrilla war and a clash between two armies that, in the end, destroyed all that remained of the county's social structure. He examines the failure of a planter-yeoman alliance, and discusses how yeoman farmers and landless white laborers allied themselves against planters, but to no avail. He also shows how slaves, when refugeed upcountry, tried unsuccessfully to reestablish their prerogatives--a subsistence, as well as protection from violence--owed them as a minimal condition of their servitude.

Gives a lively and much-needed account of the underside of the Confederacy that heretofore only occasionally has seen the light of day. --North Carolina Historical Review

Durrill has done that which is no longer expected, skillfully combining the strengths of the best new social history with some quantitative analysis and excellent political and military narrative....War of Another Kindsets a high standard for future scholars. --Journal of InterdisciplinaryHistory

Durrill's superb study...is a major contribution. --Science & Society

A finely crafted work....Coherent and compelling....Makes a significant contribution to understanding transition within agrarian societies [and] has importance both as a case study that suggests directions for future scholarship on Southern agriculture, and for comparative analysis of the demise of plantation society in the Americas. --Journal of Peasant Studies

Durrill's highly readable, provocative book will stimulate further inquiry into the war's internal effects, and for that reason, he is to be congratulated. --Civil War History

Offers an important glimplƒ$