war that affected Southerners more than Northerners was the toll that armies took on the Confederacy. Armies of both sides took whatever they needed from the civilian population. Slaves escaped to the Northern armies—it soon became official Union policy to treat these escaped slaves as contraband and put them to work in the Union camps. There was also the direct destruction of property in campaigns, such as those waged by William T. Sherman in Georgia and the Carolinas as well as David Hunter's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864. The Army of Northern Virginia invaded the North in 1862 and 1863, but the damage was not as widespread as the total war waged by Sherman and Hunter. Another legacy of the war was that deserters from both sides often turned to looting to stay alive. This lawlessness in the aftermath of campaigns would lead to hardship for the civilian populations who considered themselves far away from the actual fighting.

The North's willingness to use total war brought the war home to many Southerners. Those who stayed behind became convinced that the war was lost, and they wrote letters to the front lines encouraging the fighting men to leave the army. The end of the war saw so much destruction that no one was willing to resume the concept of secession. Many prosperous Southern families were embittered by the destruction of the war. These divisions would take generations to heal.