This chapter describes civilians' efforts to protect themselves against looting, burying their possessions or, in the case of women in the U.S. South, going so far as to hide them under their hoop skirts in specially designed pockets. The threat of looting had profound effects on the material world, resulting in not only the movement of thousands of people and their possessions but also the creation—and creative reuse—of objects that were designed to prevent the loss of one's monetary and emotional valuables. In addition, human property and movable property were linked because the looting of houses by Northern troops and enslaved people's self-emancipation often occurred in tandem. Ultimately, acts of theft, fear of looting, and the stolen objects themselves performed powerful cultural work in the United States during and after the Civil War.
Class, politics, gender and the marriage divide in the United States
