The selling of everything of value in the South for pennies on the dollar”.
Well that certainly is what happened to my mother’s family. In order to keep their house and enough land to survive on they sold out a large part of their farm (not plantation) so they could pay the accumulated federal taxes in 1865.
My Stuart family history includes passing by the Lee estates (on the way to smaller lands) and being invited to stay for a break.
It is a terrible thing to lose a war.