White Southern women struggled to maintain morale on the home front as they dealt with problems without men. Although Southern women were devoted to the Confederacy, many requested that their sons and husbands be discharged from the military to help them at home. Many women like Eliza Adams wrote to the Confederate government to appeal for exemption for her sons' military service as she sent five sons and other sons-in-laws to fight for the Confederacy. Southern women were torn between their patriotic ideals and their daily realities of life on the home front.