In early July 1863, the losses of both Gettysburg and Vicksburg were the beginning of the end of the Confederacy. Time was running out for the South, and General Robert E. Lee was aware that the enormous disparity of resources between the North and the South would soon bring the collapse of the Southern cause. Within a year, bread riots would break out on the streets of Richmond, and the ranks of Confederate deserters would swell. Even Southern women would begin to turn against the war and write their husbands to desert and come home because they were starving.
