Plants in the Civil War

Abstract

From the publisher. Slavery was at the heart of the South’s agrarian economy before and during the Civil War.
Agriculture provided products essential to the war effort, from dietary rations to antimalarial drugs to raw
materials for military uniforms and engineering. Drawing on a range of primary sources, this history examines
the botany and ethnobotany of America’s defining conflict. The author describes the diverse roles of cash
crops, herbal medicine, subsistence agriculture and the diet and cookery of enslaved people.