You nailed it. The South couldn't give up the manpower and the North could. Atlanta I'm guessing was probably the biggest city in the South back then? And it was by no means what it is today numbers wise. The North had NYC which probably dwarfed the CSA alone, much less Philly, Boston, etc. to go along with them. The CSA couldn't afford a war of attrition and yet they played right along with it.

But what gets me when people see I stand behind the flag they see and think racist. Yet my school was in a community of 400 people (but we pulled from the bigger cities around us but not much) and the school only had like 320 in K-12 (yes I went to one school my whole life). It was probably 80% black, so we spent many years together and we took up for each other. There was no racist stuff at our school, and we were quick to back each other up especially during games as it was an us against the world mentality in all sports. Let us go to Sand Mountain area which is extreme NE Bama and back then all white (99% white rural schools) and let one say ni**er and we were all ready to fight over it. All my classmates would say the same about each other too when it comes to something like this. To me America needs more of something like that. We didn't see black and white and just didn't care to. We wore stuff with the Rebel flag on it and nobody thought nothing about it. We shared drinks, Skoal, and sometimes girls But today if you wear anything with the flag on it you'll be escorted out of school.

What happened is my question? We had no problem over it and I was an 80's and 90's school kid so nobody can say it was the 60's South and everyone was afraid to speak up.