Life in the South during the Civil War was a time of sacrifice and suffering for all as the Federal government used total warfare to bring rebellious states back into the Union. American homes became military headquarters; churches and schoolhouses sheltered the dying; and huge armies swept across plantations and burned towns. Slaves accepted the hardships as the price of freedom, but white Southern enthusiasm for the Cause changed to disillusionment as everyone learned firsthand the high price of war and the bitterness of defeat in the end.