, 360,000 men gave up their lives in defense of
the Union. How many perished in the Confederate army cannot be stated,
but the loss was quite as large as on the Union side; so that it is safe
to say that more than 700,000 men were killed in the war.[1]

[Footnote 1: A table giving the size of the armies and the loss of life
will be found in _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV., pp.
767-768.]

%474. Suffering in the South.%--The South raised all the cotton,
nearly all the rice and tobacco, and one third of the Indian corn grown
in our country, and depended on Europe and the North for manufactured
goods. But when the North, in 1861 and 1862, blockaded her ports and cut
off these supplies, her distress began. Brass bells and brass kettles
were called for to be melted and cast into cannon, and every sort of
fowling piece and old musket was pressed into service and sent to the
troops in the field. As money could not be had, treasury notes were
issued by the million, to be redeemed "six months after the close of the
war." Planters were next pledged to loan the government a share of the
proceeds of their cotton, receiving bonds in return. But the blockade
was so rigorous that very little cotton could get to Europe. When this
failed, provisions for the army were bought with bonds and with paper
money issued by the states.

This steady issue of paper money, with nothing to redeem it, led to its
rapid decrease in value. In 1864 it took $40 in Confederate paper money
to buy a yard of calico. A spool of thread cost $20; a ham, $150; a
pound of sugar, $75; and a barrel of flour, $1200.

%475. Makeshifts.%--Thrown on their own resources, the Southern people
became home manufacturers. The inner shuck of Indian corn was made into
hats. Knitting became fashionable. Homespun clothing, dyed with the
extract of black-walnut bark or wild indigo or swamp maple or
elderberries, was worn by everybody. Barrels and boxes which had been
used for packing salt fish and pork were soaked in water, which was
evaporated for the sake of the salt thus extracted. Rye or wheat roasted
and ground became a substitute for coffee, and dried raspberry
leaves for tea.

Quite as desperate were the shifts to which the South was put for
soldiers. At first every young man was eager to rush to the front. But
as time passed, and the great armies of the North were formed, it became
necessary to force men into the ranks, to "conscript" them; and in 1862