This book tells the story of how Confederate civilians in the Old Dominion struggled to feed not only their stomachs but also their souls. Although demonstrating the ways in which the war created many problems within southern communities, Virginia's Private War: Feeding Body and Soul in the Confederacy, 1861-1865 does not support scholars who claim that internal dissent caused the Confederacy's downfall.

Instead, it offers a study of the Virginia home front that depicts how the Union army's continued pressure created destruction, hardship, and shortages that left the Confederate public spent and demoralized with the surrender of the army under Robert E. Lee.

However, the book does not portray the population as uniformly united in a Lost Cause. Virginians complained a great deal about the management of the war. Such complaints, ironically, may have prolonged the war, for some of the Confederacy's leaders responded by forcing the wealthy to shoulder more of the burden for prosecuting the conflict. Substitution ended, and the men who stayed home became government growers who distributed goods at reduced cost to the poor.

But ultimately, as the case is made in Virginia's Private War, none of these efforts could stave off an enemy who strained the resources of Rebel Virginians to the breaking point.