Military success was a strong antidote for hunger. Buoyed by past victories in Virginia and the apparent frustration of Grant’s designs against Vicksburg, the South faced the spring military campaigns with confidence. “If we can baffle them in their various designs this year,” wrote Robert E. Lee in April 1863, “next fall there will be a great change in public opinion at the North. The Republicans will be destroyed & I think the friends of peace will become so strong as that the next administration will go in on that basis. We have only therefore to resist manfully . . . [and] our success will
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