Confederate newspaper editors played a fundamental role in constructing, sustaining, and ultimately undermining Confederate nationalism. Editors of local presses, found in county seats and small towns across the Confederacy, created a robust nationalistic spirit defined by the defense of slavery and what I term performative nationalism. Centered on themes of shared duty, sacrifice, and unity, the active performance of these pillars of performative nationalism connected Confederates and their localities to the wider war by knitting communities into a broader national fabric. Editors called on their local men to go off and fight, women to provide material and emotional support, and the wealthy to grow the crops that would feed the armies and help support the families of the volunteers fighting for their enslaved property. Performative nationalism was at its core reciprocal: every member of society had a duty to perform to the nation and to their neighbors in the shared struggle to defend the South and the institution of slavery from Northern attacks. In return for these sacrifices at the local level, Confederates expected the nation to protect their communities. By serving the nation, Confederates also served their communities. Editors built a national community out of their personal ones.The press shows that the defense of slavery was the overriding theme of Confederate nationalism. Beginning with the debates over secession, the Southern press was committed to protecting slavery from Northern assault. Debates over whether to secede focused on where slavery would be safest, in the Union or in a new Southern Confederacy. Once the war began, editors used slavery as a positive argument for why the South would triumph. Slavery allowed all Southern whites to unite in a shared cause and commit themselves to the field while enslaved laborers grew food for the army. But editors also used the institution to threaten white Southerners about the dangers awaiting them if they failed to win the war. Writers warned that a United States victory would bring emancipation, race war, and the end of white supremacy. Through these strategies, the press was able to form a strong proslavery national identity.Ultimately, the press reveals how Confederate nationalism cracked and broke at the local level. Local realties shaped how Confederates and their editors felt about their nation and the war more than any national event. When speculators drove up prices, when the wealthy reneged on their commitment to aid the soldier’s family, when United States forces occupied towns, and when the Union destroyed slavery and black troops entered the South, performative nationalism began to collapse. Fundamentally, newspapers and their readers recognized that the Confederacy failed to defend slavery and the homefront. Confederates sacrificed for their nation, but their nation was unable to protect them. This breach in the reciprocal system of performative nationalism occurred in different places and at different times, but when it did, local editors, their papers, and their readers turned away from the Confederate Cause. The realities of the war at the local level shattered Confederate nationalism.