The rebel government made the shortages and inflation much worse by the policy of impressment, through which a military unit could seize food, horses, mules, wagons, and supplies—and sometimes of slaves to work on military fortifications. The impressment parties paid low fixed price using paper certificates that promised actual payment later. Flour sold for $100 dollars per hundred pounds in Alexandria, Louisiana, in late 1863, but the impressment price was only $12. Farmers were outraged, and reduced their plantings, hid their crops, and moved their livestock out of reach of the impressment parties. If the Union lines were nearby, farmers could sell to the enemy for high prices paid in gold coin. In Georgia farmers hid a two-year supply of corn rather than sell to the government—but the weevils ruined the grain so much it was only good for the distillery. Increasingly the Confederacy adopted a taxation system based on tithing, that is, 10% of the crop to be turned over to the government. Voluntary compliance was hard to achieve, and violent resistance broke out in the mountain districts. Poor people were especially hard-hit by the runaway inflation, which led legislatures to pass laws making the collection of debts much harder. That of course antagonized the business class, sharply reduce the credits and loans they traditionally had made.Paul W. Gates, Agriculture and the Civil War (1965) pp. 46–72.
