Under Construction @ Keele 2019 summer 2019, vol 5 issue 1 | Page 12

overseers of plantations with more than twenty slaves. As few households owned so many
slaves, this law was only applicable to the highest echelons of society. It is likely that the
number of men initially discharged under this law was fewer than one thousand, a number
barely sufficient for one army regiment 7 . Although the Confederacy became increasingly
desperate for troops as the war progressed, even when considering the exemptions granted
before the passing of the Twenty-Slave Law, it is unlikely that these dismissals had any
significant impact in terms of men on the ground. Although elite women damaged the war
effort by tying up the time of already overstretched government officials and by removing a
small number of much-needed troops, overall in this respect the damage they caused was
limited.
Elite women were not the only social group who attempted “to take advantage of
state and Confederate laws exempting overseers. More than half of women’s requests for
overseers were made on behalf of farms owning fewer than 20 slaves” 8 . However, unlike elite
women, these yeoman farmers were often unsuccessful in gaining exemptions. George Rable
undeniably states that “heeding the thousands of pleas for discharges and exemptions would
have dangerously weakened the Confederate army." 9 However, the exemption system was
unfairly weighted towards elite whites, and the poor and middling classes were abundantly
aware of this and resented the way in which elite families lived in safety with their men, while
they struggled to survive. Although their continual pleas for discharges had done little to
damage military power, elite women had unintentionally exhibited the immense inequity of
the Confederate exemption system. Although true blame for the subsequent plummeting of
7
Ibid, p.82
Ibid, p.85
9
Rable, Civil Wars, p.74
8
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