elaboration

The section that yielded yesterday's quote was truly remarkable, interrupting the otherwise seamless torrent of narrative with a welcomed fatty deposit of analysis, specifically on the economic impact the war had on the opposing regions. The North, by any standard, flourished during the four years of conflict. Foote defended his often repeated thesis that the North never devoted itself completely to the war and, conversely, that the South gave all it had, though it remained hamstrung by its own seperatist tendencies i.e. certain govenors wouldn't allow their troops to fight in other states and that after President Davis requested that all farms be devoted exclusively to the war effort, many plantation owners declared that they would continue to plant cotton and damn the arrogance of the Chief Executive. Inflation devoured the Confederacy's wealth and then starved its citizens, as early as the winter of 1862/63. Meanwhile Northern areas out west became Territories and expansion boomed.