A new country now exists where the United States once was. On January 19, 1861, Georgia left the Union. Ten other states followed. Together they formed the Confederate States of America. The two nations were nearly identical in structure — similar constitutions, similar laws, similar courts — but they were separate, with their own governments, their own currencies, and their own objectives. Citizens who had been one people were now divided between two countries.

The Bryan plantation at Wilna was now in the Confederate States of America. The Houston County courthouse where Robert C. Bryan filed his annual returns was a Confederate court. The cotton brokers in Macon operated in a Confederate city. The taxes paid to the Houston County Tax Collector went to a Confederate state. The ledger looks the same as it always did. The country it operated in had changed.

May 10, 1861: M. Damour receives $13.00 for two black bonnets. May 11: Houser Cox & Co. receives $45.00 for one metallic coffin. Catharine H. Bryan — born 1803, wife of James A. Bryan, mother of Robert, Troup, Ira Hugh, Cornelius, Nancy, Abner, Catharine P., James S., Honora, and Laura — died May 1861. She was 58 years old.

She had been a widow since March 1847. The estate that carries her husband's name had been administered by her son Robert through fifteen years of cotton harvests, school fees, land sales, distributions, a monument, and a war. The two bonnets are the mourning dress. The metallic coffin — sealed, intended for preservation of the body — is the final expense the estate records on her behalf. The ledger moves to the next entry.

The account current: Sisters travelling to Wilkinson — $1.50. Two Bryan sisters making the journey to Wilkinson County in July 1861. Nancy Bryan Whitehurst lives at a plantation in Gordon, Wilkinson County — her husband W.M. Whitehurst is away with the State Guard cavalry. The destination and the year are what the ledger records. The $1.50 is the travel expense. The rest is not in this document.

J.R. & C.D. Findlay supply one set of plates and bolts for the cotton screw — $10.00, October 9. Henry Balkcom receives $47.00 and four bushels of rye for building a new screw — October 16. The cotton screw is the press that compresses ginned cotton into bales. It has been repaired in prior years — 1855, 1858 — but this is a full rebuild. A new 50-saw gin was purchased in April 1858. The gin and the screw together are the mechanical core of the cotton operation. Both have now been replaced within the decade. In 1861, with the cotton market contracting and only 14 bales sold for the year, the estate rebuilds its pressing equipment regardless.

Adams & Reynolds sell 7 bales to E. Price on December 11 — 3,471 lbs at 7 cents, $239.47 net. Seven more bales to A.B. Wyche on December 31 — 3,411 lbs at 7¼ cents, $243.79 net. Fourteen bales total. $483.26 in cotton income for the year. The estate sold 92 bales in 1858, 73 in 1859, 61 in 1860. It sells 14 in 1861. The same brand — J.A.B. — on every bale. The same brokers. The same buyers' names. Seven cents a pound.

Tooke & Cooper at the Houston Factory manufacture 185 yards of kersey for the estate — $27.75, settled January 1, 1862. In every prior year the estate purchased kersey by the yard from Macon suppliers — Ross & Co., Ayres Wingfield — as a finished good. In 1861, the estate sends raw wool to the factory and receives back manufactured cloth. The plantation's own sheep, sheared, carded, and woven into the kersey that will be cut into winter clothing. The supply chain from Macon has shortened to the Houston Factory a few miles away.