for material goods. The lack of resources forced the Confederacy to levy war taxes and borrow heavily on future cotton crops. An inflationary period in 1863 and later government actions almost destroyed the Confederate credit.In addition the South was hampered by the lack of powder mills and of suitable iron works; only one plant, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, was equipped to turn out large field guns. The railroad system was inadequately developed and equipped, and although the South made desperate attempts to maintain itself in a battle against overwhelming odds, the struggles left it financially and industrially ruined at the close of the Civil War. The process of restoring the Confederacy to the Union was called Reconstruction . The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1869, in the case of Texas v. White, declared secession unconstitutional....
