Submission to Black Republicans would mean “the loss of liberty, property, home, country—everything that makes life worth having,” proclaimed a South Carolinian. “I am engaged in the glorious cause of liberty and justice,” wrote a Confederate soldier, “fighting for the rights of man—fighting for all that we of the South hold dear.”17 What stake did nonslaveholding whites have in this crusade for the freedom of planters to own slaves? Some secessionists worried a great deal about this question.
