When one looks back in our history, we have always thought that everyone suffered after the Civil War. The Civil War after all was extremely destructive to anything and anyone involved. However, Robert Tracy McKenzie did not believe that everyone suffered a great deal. In fact, in his article, “Civil War and Socioeconomic Change in the Upper South: The Survival of Local Agricultural Elites in Tennessee, 1850-1870,” he discussed how the top five percent of the elite farmers were still prosperous. McKenzie’s article focuses on all three regions in Tennessee, but only a few select counties. He discussed their similarities and how the Civil War affected them. One of the major things that was mentioned in Robert McKenzie’s article, “Civil War and Socioeconomic Change in the Upper South: The Survival of Local Agricultural Elites in Tennessee, 1850-1870,” was all of the similarities that these elite farmers shared. For one, even though they all resided in …show more content…
Some of the elite had lost acres of their land to the armies. Others lost their slaves. This caused many of the local elite’s personal wealth to decline. However, even though this had happened, the top elite farmers in their counties remained prosperous. The Civil War may have affected the other elite farmer’s wealth, but the top five percent had not been affected hardly at all. In fact, McKenzie discussed in his article, “Civil War and Socioeconomic Change in the Upper South: The Survival of Local Agricultural Elites in Tennessee, 1850-1870,” how some of the top five percent managed to keep their wealth. McKenzie mentioned that some of the top five percent elite farmers sold or mortgaged their lands in order to pay for their debts. Some of the men would transfer all of their land over to their wives in order to get out of paying their debts. McKenzie made it clear that even those these men may have sold most of their land, they remained the elite in their