Slavery In Augusta County

Life as a citizen of the United States before, during, and after the Civil War would highly vary depending on race and living location. During the Civil War, Augusta County located on the Southern side of the Shenandoah Valley, was home to many plantation owners and even more slave laborers. Slavery was not only the main reason Augusta County prospered agriculturally and economically but it was also the reason the war initiated in 1861 between the Confederates of the South and Union soldiers of the North. Agriculture in Augusta County changed after the war because of the Union victory and gradual emancipation of slavery, which caused a downturn in economic growth, a shift in the Southern labor force, and a modification in crop production.

Agriculture, the backbone of Augusta County, would be especially decimated in the more Southernly located Augusta County in the post war era due to the relentless war efforts of the North and the loss of much of its once reliant labor force.
Economic growth in Augusta County during the post-war era tremendously stagnated compared to the pre-war period due to a lack of financial resources and a decline in agricultural output.

Post-war Southerners were faced with daily dilemmas that prolonged the reconstruction period. “The Valley Virginian”, a local post-war southern newspaper, complains in 1866 that Northern radicals are forcing them out of office and are not concerned with the rebuilding period needed for the south to survive (Torget and Ayers, Two Communities in the Civil War, 217). This is in direct opposition to President Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation, which gave an official pardon to Southerners that took part in the war. Furthermore, the proposed 14th Amendment disputed by ex-confederates, as argued in the “Vindicator”, was also in opposition to Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation, and was also stopping Southerners to get proper representation in congress which would further delay reconstruction in Augusta County (Two Communities in the Civil War, 219). The limited government support was not helped by the fact that Union Soldiers war tactics devastated the previously flourishing farmland. William T. Sherman, a Union general, commanded troops to not only burn fields in a March from Atlanta to Savannah, but also destroy food supplies saved by Southerners during the winter months (Bailey, Sherman’s March to the Sea). The South, especially Augusta County, was extremely dependent on these fields and excess food

supplies for their own survival and for further economic growth through trade. “Business of all kinds is very flat now, and there seems to be no money in the country. It is almost impossible now to collect a few Dollars from the best men in our community” (Valley of the Shadow: A. J. Gilkeson to Gilkeson's brother). This quote is taken from a letter detailing the harsh post-war conditions for Southern landowners and the inability of many of them to keep the crop filled land they owned before the war. Economic growth was also very dependent on the South being able to transport the agricultural goods to areas in the North and over seas to Europe. The Civil War caused locomotive workers to abandon railroad yards in order to enlist in the confederate army. Also, attention was being more focused on ammunition and wartime supplies rather then in keeping up railroad tracks and trains. The Union army also played a key role in halting the exportation through the railway systems by sabotaging confederate tracks in an attempt to further deplete the South of supplies needed for war. Money that the South did not have was needed to rebuild the burnt down fields and destroyed railways, which were both crucial factors in restoring the once rapidly growing, agriculturally dependent Augusta County economy. Bringing in money to the economy would be made possible through agriculture, the only problem however was that what was once a slave dominant labor force was changing with the emancipation of slavery.
Southern plantation owners needed slaves in order to maintain the labor force needed to keep up with Northern and European high demands of cotton and other crops.

By 1860 Southern states provided 2/3 of the United States cotton supply and about 80% of European cotton, in order to provide for European Cotton Mill expansion (lecture: 11/13/15). Before the Civil War, there were about 800,000 to 3.2 million slaves in order to keep up with this increasing demand for agriculture. The ending of the Civil War not only meant supposed freedom for blacks in the South, but it also meant a huge loss for southern plantation owners’ unpaid labor force. A southern planter elaborates the change in the labor force through a letter to his brother by telling him that “labour is all to hire” and that “expenses are very heavy” for the people hired to work the land (Valley of the Shadow: D. V. Gilkeson to Gilkeson's brother). A new system needed to be created in order to help both the plantation owners seeking labor and former slaves seeking jobs. This is where sharecropping came into play. Sharecropping was a system in which the owners of the lands would rent it out to laborers who would plant crops on it but who had to give the landowner a portion of the crop at the end of the year. However, there were many problems with this system that kept most of the laborers in debt year after year. Henry Blake, a former slave, experienced first hand the issues that came with reconstruction and the birth of

sharecropping. He says in an interview that it was hard to make money through shares because laborers had to trust the dishonest white man with giving out fair halves and keeping account of the laborer’s debt. (Blake, Sharecropping after the Civil War). Although a step had been taken in the right direction through the emancipation of slavery, there was still a very long way to go for blacks to have the same equal rights as whites. The shift in labor force saw with it the changing of crops that were produced in Augusta County.
The agriculturally dependent Augusta County saw a major shift in crop production due to the Civil War and its after effects. Many former successful plantation owners had to start from scratch due to either their field being destroyed or their labor force being depleted. N.J. Hall describes the tough post-war life of an Augusta County farmer and landowner in a letter stating that farming supplies remained very costly as did the cost of living and maintaining land. Like many farmers, in order to start new and be successful, Hall needed to borrow money from a friend or acquaintance. (Koons, “Our once beautiful but now desolated Valley”). The 1870s were also characterized by an agricultural depression marked by a decline in crop prices that had an avalanche effect on most of the South. For one, small farms had a very difficult time turning profit from crops and large farms often had to succumb to the pressures that the after effects of the Civil War brought and reduce their once sizeable farm land. In the 1860 farm acreage census, 873 out of the 1553 farms in Augusta County ranged between 100-500 acres. (Valley of the Shadow: 1860 Farm Acreage). This meant that more than half were very large farms before the war but after the war that number plummeted to about a quarter of the farms. On top of the farm size falling, there was a shift in the actual crop produced. In 1860, wheat dominated Augusta county crop production in every prescient recorded (Two Communities in the Civil War, 297). Wheat actually saw an increase in production during the civil war but besides that every crop and livestock in Augusta saw a major decline from 1860 to 1870. Desolated fields, low crop prices, and a focus on wheat production plagued the postwar agricultural period but farmers kept on tough-sledding through the hard times which led to a rebirth of agriculture in Augusta County during the 1880s.
Three factors that caused a decline in agriculture in the Augusta County after the Civil War was the downturn in economic growth, a shift in the southern labor force, and modification of crop production. Economic growth was reliant on farmers being able to ship their output to consumers through railroads that had been destroyed by the war. The growth of the economy was also dependent on the ability of landowners being able to regain power in congress in order to protect their rights and property. Getting money into the Augusta County economy was crucial during the reconstruction period and the after effects of the war made that extremely difficult. During the antebellum period, unpaid slave labor was the main source of labor in the South and especially in Augusta County. However, with the emancipation of slaves caused by the confederate defeat, farmers had to look elsewhere for labor. The transition from slave labor to wage labor brought with it sharecropping and the unfairness that came with it. Former slaves had an incredibly tough time making enough profit with the unfair system to begin renting or owning their own land and the majority of these slaves were in debt for countless years. Crop production also saw a drastic change during the postwar period. Farmers were left with destroyed lands and no money to start fresh. Small farmers had a difficult time earning profit and larger farmers that started with a big piece of land were forced to downsize. This was due to the decline of crop prices, which caused an even more extreme focus on wheat production that August County was known for. All of these factors tie into the ideal that Agriculture in Augusta County saw a decline in economic growth, a shift in the once reliant labor force, and an adaptation in crop production.