In order to boost morale, the New York Times printed a letter from an anonymous writer in Texas, who wrote to the metropolitan newspaper. He or she began with these words: “Perhaps there never was a people more bewitched, beguiled, and befooled than we were when we drifted into this rebellion. We have been kept so to an amazing extent.”

When the war began, in 1861, Texas, the writer declared, was on the cusp of full recovery from the Mexican War. The area was becoming settled and industrious, trade was brisk, and the local taxes were next to nothing. Most important of all, “civil law was replacing lynch law.” Now, three years into the conflict, the whole male population of Texas was in the war, the ground lay untilled, and sheep and cattle were driven off by marauders. As for civil justice, “Every man relies on his six-shooter.” Perhaps the writer exaggerated a little, but not too much. Texas and every other state in the Confederacy was in the midst of a general crisis. Many Southerners lamented that they had begun this war over the issue of states’ rights, only to become subject to a dictatorship from Richmond.