SOURCE: Ayers, Edward L., and Bradley C. Mittendorf. “The Civil War and Its Consequences.” In The Oxford Book of the American South: Testimony, Memory, and Fiction, edited by Edward L. Ayers and Bradley C. Mittendorf, pp. 111-12. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

In the following essay, Ayers and Mittendorf consider the effects of the Civil War on the lives of Southerners and the literature of the American South.

The Civil War was the most important event in the history of the South. Free or slave, black or white, male or female, rich or poor, the war changed the landscape of people's lives. From the moment it began, the war unleashed changes few could have imagined. To the surprise of virtually everyone, it brought slavery to an abrupt end. It brought death to one fourth of the white men of military age in the South. It brought a lifetime...