Editing Confederate States of America (section)

===Devastation by 1865===
By the end of the war deterioration of the Southern infrastructure was widespread. The number of civilian deaths is unknown. Every Confederate state was affected, but most of the war was fought in Virginia and Tennessee, while Texas and Florida saw the least military action. Much of the damage was caused by direct military action, but most was caused by lack of repairs and upkeep, and by deliberately using up resources. Historians have recently estimated how much of the devastation was caused by military action. Paul Paskoff calculates that Union military operations were conducted in 56% of 645 counties in nine Confederate states (excluding Texas and Florida). These counties contained 63% of the 1860 white population and 64% of the slaves. By the time the fighting took place, undoubtedly some people had fled to safer areas, so the exact population exposed to war is unknown.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Paul F. |last=Paskoff |title=Measures of War: A Quantitative Examination of the Civil War's Destructiveness in the Confederacy |journal=Civil War History |year=2008 |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=35–62 |doi=10.1353/cwh.2008.0007 |s2cid=144929048 }}</ref>

<gallery style="float:right; text-align:center" perrow="2">
PottersHouseAtlanta1864.jpg|Potters House, Atlanta GA
Charleston ruins.jpg|Downtown Charleston SC
Virginia, Norfolk Navy Yard, Ruins of - NARA - 533292.tif|Navy Yard, Norfolk VA
Ruins of Petersburg, R.R. Bridge, Richmond, Va. April, 1865 - NARA - 528974.jpg|Rail bridge, Petersburg VA
</gallery>

The eleven Confederate States in the 1860 United States census had 297 towns and cities with 835,000 people; of these 162 with 681,000 people were at one point occupied by Union forces. Eleven were destroyed or severely damaged by war action, including Atlanta (with an 1860 population of 9,600), Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond (with prewar populations of 40,500, 8,100, and 37,900, respectively); the eleven contained 115,900 people in the 1860 census, or 14 percent of the urban South. Historians have not estimated what their actual population was when Union forces arrived. The number of people (as of 1860) who lived in the destroyed towns represented just over 1 percent of the Confederacy's 1860 population. In addition, 45 court houses were burned (out of 830). The South's agriculture was not highly mechanized. The value of farm implements and machinery in the 1860 Census was $81&nbsp;million; by 1870, it had diminished by 40 percent and was worth just $48&nbsp;million. Many old tools had broken through heavy use; new tools were rarely available, and even repairs were difficult.<ref name="Paskoff, Measures of War">Paskoff, "Measures of War"</ref>

The economic losses affected everyone. Most banks and insurance companies had gone bankrupt. Confederate currency and bonds were worthless. The billions of dollars invested in slaves vanished. Most debts were also left behind. Most farms were intact but had lost their horses, mules, and cattle. Paskoff shows the loss of farm infrastructure was about the same whether or not fighting took place nearby. The loss of infrastructure and productive capacity meant that rural widows throughout the region faced not only the absence of able-bodied men, but a depleted stock of material resources. During four years of warfare, disruption, and blockades, the South used up about half its capital stock.<ref name="Paskoff, Measures of War"/>

The rebuilding took years and was hindered by the low price of cotton after the war. Outside investment was essential, especially in railroads. One historian has summarized the collapse of the transportation infrastructure needed for economic recovery:<ref>{{cite book |first=John Samuel |last=Ezell |title=The South since 1865 |url=https://archive.org/details/southsince18650000ezel |year=1963 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/southsince18650000ezel/page/27 27]–28 |publisher=New York, Macmillan }}</ref>

{{Blockquote|One of the greatest calamities which confronted Southerners was the havoc wrought on the transportation system. Roads were impassable or nonexistent, and bridges were destroyed or washed away. The important river traffic was at a standstill: levees were broken, channels were blocked, the few steamboats which had not been captured or destroyed were in a state of disrepair, wharves had decayed or were missing, and trained personnel were dead or dispersed. Horses, mules, oxen, carriages, wagons, and carts had nearly all fallen prey at one time or another to the contending armies. The railroads were paralyzed, with most of the companies bankrupt. These lines had been the special target of the enemy. On one stretch of 114 miles in Alabama, every bridge and trestle was destroyed, cross-ties rotten, buildings burned, water-tanks gone, ditches filled up, and tracks grown up in weeds and bushes ... Communication centers like Columbia and Atlanta were in ruins; shops and foundries were wrecked or in disrepair. Even those areas bypassed by battle had been pirated for equipment needed on the battlefront, and the wear and tear of wartime usage without adequate repairs or replacements reduced all to a state of disintegration.}}