During the Civil War, with practically every fit white man serving in the Confederate Army, South Carolina had a serious shortage of conventional labor. So, since most of the population consisted of enslaved African-Americans, that’s where the state turned for workers to build such military structures as fortifications and breastworks, as well as to manufacture goods needed in the war effort. As slaves, they were pressed into service and not compensated. But then, six decades later, the South Carolina General Assembly decided to pay tiny pensions to those whose labor had supported the Confederate war effort. Henley calls the pensions a "poor form of relief."