Mid 19th century life in the American south, what do you think it was like?

Say 1850 time period. I’ve read writings from people back then over the years. Seemed church was a major event and all the preachers in the south were mean Very few actual social events, some had town get togethers once a year and outside of that it was just life on the farm.

I wonder how the overall dad and mom were at home. Stern, pissed off all the time, happy, tired? I often wonder if they enjoyed the scenery around their rural homes. Did kids play any out in the country side, fished, hunt or was it just constant, hard, back breaking work all waking hours?


I’ve heard families would go to sleep at dark and wake up in middle of the night and have family time, basically time of day was irrelevant to people, nobody kept up with what time it actually was.

Eta: Obviously for blacks people it sucked