After the start of the Civil War, reality soon set in. Both sides suffered terrible losses. New rifles during the Civil war fired with greater accuracy than earlier muskets. Medical facilities were overwhelmed and under supplied. Such horrors caused many soldiers to desert because of fear, hunger & sickness. Southern forces were undernourished & starving. Women took on new responsibilities during the war becoming teachers, office & govt. workers & sales clerks or the sole provider of their households. Many women perished from starvation, violence, grief and anxiety while trying to maintain life at home. As war dragged on, the South ran out of almost everything due to shortages from the blockade. Some women worked as spies or on the front lines. Thousands served as nurses. Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton & Sally Tompkins served as nurses and helped to est. military hospitals. Drafts and bounties for soldiers to enlist caused opposition. The most angry draft protest in NYC lasted for 4 days in 1863. War strained the economies of the North & South. Both sides borrowed money and imposed taxes & printed more $. Northern $ were called greenbacks. Prices rose & inflation occurred. Jefferson Davis declared military law and suspended habeas corpus in the South. The Civil War was a modern war: total war & devastation.