Civil War and Reconstruction

1
Civil War and Reconstruction

• Chapter 6

2
Decisive Battles of the Civil War (1861-1865)

• First Battle of Bull Run (July 2, 1861) The
  Union and the Confederates fought this battle 30
  miles south of Washington, D.C. It was a
  humiliating defeat for the North and almost led
  to a Confederate invasion of Washington, D.C.
• Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862) This battle in Shiloh,
  Tennessee was the bloodiest of the Civil War.
  Total casualties for both sides numbered over
  20,000. This battle ended without any clear
  winner in the West.

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• Antietam (September 17, 1862) Robert E. Lee,
  brilliant Southern general, planned an invasion
  of the North, but his battle strategies fell into
  the hands of a northern soldier. As a result, Lee
  met a larger force of Union soldiers than he had
  anticipated. The battle at Antietam Creek,
  Maryland is considered the bloodiest one day
  battle in the history of the United States. It
  was after this Union victory that Lincoln issued
  the Emancipation Proclamation (1863).
• Vicksburg ( May 15 July 4, 1863) After Union
  forces under General Farragut had taken the port
  of New Orleans, they began moving north to gain
  control of the Mississippi River. The town of
  Vicksburg, Mississippi was very well guarded by
  the Confederacy and was the last major obstacle
  to total Union control of the Mississippi River.
  General Sherman and other leaders advised Union
  forces to retreat from the Vicksburg area in
  early 1863. However, Union General Ulysses S.
  Grant ignored this advice and began a bold siege
  of General Pembertons Confederate forces at
  Vicksburg for almost two months. On the 4th of
  July, Grants forces conquered the city.
  Consequently, the Mississippi River came under
  the control of the Union.

4

• Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863) Union forces
  repeatedly defeated the Confederates as General
  Lee tried to take control of the city of
  Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In November, 1863 at
  this site, Lincoln gave The Gettysburg Address,
  which affirmed his belief in democracy and his
  desire to see the warring nation reunited in
  peace. This battle was considered the turning
  point of the war because the Confederacy no
  longer had the ability to launch an offensive
  into Union territory.

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• Chattanooga (November 23-25) After their defeat
  at Chickamauga in Georgia, Union troops retreated
  into Tennessee. A combined Union force from the
  Armies of Sherman, Grant, and Hooker defeated the
  Southern forces occupying Lookout Mountain in
  Tennessee. Confederate forces fled Tennessee
  after this battle, placing the entire state in
  the hands of the Union and cutting off important
  railway supplies to Atlanta, Georgia.

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• Atlanta (September 2, 1864) Three months after
  Shermans defeat at Kennesaw Mountain, he was
  able to advance against Atlanta, Georgia, which
  was a vital railroad terminal for the South.
  Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground, destroying
  the ability of the Confederacy to supply the war
  effort.
• Shermans March (May December, 1864) For this
  infamous march, Sherman hand-picked 60,000
  soldiers to destroy everything in a 60 mile-wide
  path from Chattanooga, Tennessee, through
  Atlanta, to Savannah, Georgia. Sherman wanted to
  destroy the railroad tracks and farms to disable
  the civilians from helping the Confederate army.
  The soldiers looted, raped, and murdered
  civilians and burned their towns from Chattanooga
  to the city gates of Savannah. Sherman then
  turned his forces north towards Virginia to meet
  with Grant and defeat Lees army with their
  combined forces. Shermans army continued its
  destruction as it moved north through the
  Carolinas, which included burning Columbia, South
  Carolina. Shermans March and the burning of
  Atlanta broke the spirit of the Confederates
  creating bitterness and tension between the North
  and the South that exist to some degree even
  today.

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• Surrender at Appomattox (April 9, 1865)
  Realizing his army was outnumbered by more than
  two-to-one, General Lee surrendered to General
  Grant at the courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia.
  Grant offered generous terms of surrender, and
  the Civil War ended.

9
Social and Political Changes During The Civil War

• As the battle lines were being drawn, Maryland
  was split between North South. However, if
  Maryland joined the Confederacy, the Union
  capital, Washington, D.C. would be surrounded by
  the Confederate territory. After Confederate
  sympathizers attacked Union troops in Baltimore,
  President Lincoln declared martial law in
  Maryland and suspended the right of habeas
  corpus.Habeas corpus guaranteed that a person
  count not be imprisoned without appearing in
  court. The president then jailed the strongest
  supporters of the Confederacy. As a result, the
  Maryland legislature voted to remain in the
  Union. The suspension was lifted at the end of
  the Civil War.

10

• For the first time in the United States history,
  men were drafted (forced to serve in the
  military) to fight the opposing side in the Civil
  War. The Confederacy started the draft first in
  April 1862. The draft did not produce many more
  men, and soldiers could hire someone else to take
  their place on both sides. When Lincoln initiated
  the draft in 1863, opposition was fierce. Lincoln
  included a provision allowing men selected to
  either serve in the military or pay 300. The
  poverty-stricken immigrant Irish resented this
  rich mans provision and held blacks responsible
  for the Civil War. Whites in New York City killed
  over 1,000 people over the course of 3 days of
  rioting. The rioters also made a point of looting
  the homes of the rich. Property damage from the
  riot was about 2 million. Federal troops quelled
  the rioters, and order was restored.
• During the Civil War, free and newly emancipated
  blacks served the Union in segregated military
  units. Having fought with great bravery, 23 of
  these soldiers received the Congressional Medal
  of Honor. Their contribution persuaded many
  people that blacks deserved to have full rights
  as citizens, including the right to vote.

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• The Homestead Act (1862) stated that anyone who
  would agree to cultivate 160 acres of land for 5
  years would receive title to land from the
  federal government. This Act greatly accelerated
  the settlement of the West until the 1930s.
• The Morrill Land Grant Act (1862) allotted each
  state thousands of acres of land based on the
  number of senators and representatives. Each
  state was required to use this land to fund at
  least one public university. The money generated
  from this Act formed the foundation for the
  public university system that exists today in the
  United States.

12

• President Lincoln issued the Emancipation
  Proclamation, on January 1, 1863, freeing the
  slaves in the Confederate States, while
  maintaining slavery in the border states loyal to
  the Union. With this executive order, Lincoln
  hoped to give the war a moral focus beyond saving
  the Union and undermine the slave labor force
  supporting the Confederacy. He also wanted to
  insure the support of England and France which
  had already abolished slavery. Two years later,
  Congress passed the 13th Amendment which
  abolished slavery throughout the United States.

13
Cost Of War

• More U.S. soldiers died in this war than in all
  the other wars in the U.S. history combined. Over
  600,000 men were killed during their time as
  soldiers in the Union or Confederate armies. Over
  half of these soldiers did not die in battle,
  however. Many soldiers died from common illnesses
  which were aggravated by the unsanitary
  conditions of life in the camps or in the war
  prisons. The major culprits in these soldiers
  deaths were diarrhea, typhoid, measles, malaria,
  and dysentery. The economic and social cost and
  gains for the war for each side were strikingly
  different.

14
The North

• At the start of the war, the Union federal budget
  was 63 million. By the end of the War, the
  budget had grown 200 times larger to 1.3
  billion. To gain this money, the government began
  printing more dollars, causing inflation to
  increase quickly.
• Mostly due to wartime demands, industrial
  production increased to record high levels.
  International immigration increased in the urban
  North, and three new states joined the Union-
  Kansa, West Virginia, and Nevada.
• The Union was restored.
• Over 360,000 Union soldiers lost their lives.
• The return of 800,000 soldiers to work plus the
  slower demand for manufactured products in the
  North led to a short-lived recession (economic
  downturn characterized by higher unemployment.

15
The South

• The South lost its fight for independence, and
  its slave-based economy was abolished.
• Over 258,000 Confederate soldiers lost their
  lives.
• The South was devastated. With railroads and
  factories destroyed, banks closed.
• With farms destroyed and slaves emancipated, the
  agricultural economy declined.
• Some people feared retaliation from the North and
  from former slaves.
• Over 2/3 of southern wealth was destroyed. The
  majority of the wealth disappeared when the
  slaves, who were highly prized by their owners,
  received their freedom.

16
Life For Emancipated Blacks

• Emancipated slaves were called
  freedmen,and they experienced many difficulties
  even in their newly acquired freedom. Among these
  difficulties were
• Illiteracy was widespread because teaching slaves
  to read and write had been illegal in most
  states.
• Freed slaves were skilled in farming but owned no
  land and had no money to purchase any land.
• Few people could afford to hire freedmen, and
  working for former masters was like going back to
  slavery.
• Given these difficulties, many sought a new
  life in the northern cities or the western
  frontier. Others became sharecroppers who would
  farm a piece of land for the land owner and pay
  him for the see, land, and materials with a
  portion of the crop.

17

• In an effort to meet the immediate needs of
  those displaced by the war, Congress established
  the Freedmens Bureau in March 1862. This Bureau
  was intended to aid both blacks and whites, but
  it served mostly blacks. The bureau provided
  clothing and surplus army food, 5 million and
  agents to organize schools for black children and
  adults, medical care for over one million people,
  and agents to find work for freedmen and prevent
  exploitation. Some Southerners saw the Bureau as
  a Republican effort to help blacks at the expense
  of whites.

18
Cultural Foundations In The Black Community, The
Family

• Family was the most important link for the people
  of West Africa. Slave traders and their allies
  captured and sold millions of Africans into
  slavery. Slaves were either captured individually
  or as a tribe. Once captured, the traders put the
  slaves an a forced march for miles across land
  and crammed them into slave ships. Slave traders
  placed the slaves side by side with no room for
  movement. They couldnt dispose of their body
  waste throughout this trip. Disease rapidly
  spread from person to person under these
  conditions. Usually, one-third of the slaves died
  on the trip across the Atlantic, severing even
  more family ties.Once slaves arrived at the slave
  markets in North America, the wealthy would
  purchase them, usually as individuals. As a
  result, slave owners severed most of the slaves
  other remaining family ties from West Africa.
  Sometimes, the wealthy would sell or trade their
  slaves. This situation made it difficult for
  family relationships to develop. In other cases,
  slave owner and their sons had children by their
  slave women. Slave owners considered this their
  right since slaves were their property. Then,
  slave owners often sold their children as slaves.
  Despite these challenges, blacks, as slaves and
  after emancipation, developed strong family
  relationships. Public records across the South at
  this time show thousands of marriages of slaves
  and former slaves on public record and very few
  instances of divorce. In addition, blacks revived
  their traditions from West Africa, relying on
  their extended family and kinship bonds for
  undergoing the trials ahead.

19
The Church

• From the time of slavery through emancipation,
  blacks developed cultural institutions to help
  them deal with their dislocation from Africa,
  loss of family, and their condition as slaves.
  They turned to the Christian church for support
  however, they quickly realized they were
  discriminated in the predominantly white churches
  they had joined. For free blacks in the North,
  they had the choice for joining new all-black
  churches to escape discrimination. One of the
  largest organizations became known as the African
  Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. For those in
  the South, blacks had to wait for emancipation to
  form their churches free of discrimination. Those
  in slavery held out the hope that God would free
  them, just as they heard members to different
  owners, church became the most important social
  and cultural outlet available to them.

20
Education

• As a general rule, state laws prohibited slaves
  in the South from learning how to read and write.
  However, free blacks in the North were able to
  receive an education. With the end of the Civil
  War, the Freedmens Bureau built schools to
  ensure that blacks could learn mathematics and
  basic literacy. When segregation became
  established in the South, blacks received a
  lesser education than their white counterparts.
  Their schools were usually run-down, and their
  books were often of poorer quality than those in
  white schools.

21
Different Views of Reconstruction

• Even before the Civil War ended, politicians in
  the North argued over how to readmit the
  rebellious states, or reconstruct the South.
  One reason the Executive Branch and Congress
  battle over Reconstruction was due to their
  differing understandings of the secession of the
  Southern states. President Lincoln and his
  successor, Andrew Jackson, believed that no state
  had a legal right to secede. Therefore, those
  individuals involved in rebellion were guilty of
  insurrection. The President was responsible for
  bringing those persons under the authority of the
  federal government and restoring the Union as
  quickly as possible.

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• Congress agreed that the President had authority
  to quell an insurrection, but they believed once
  the armed rebellion was thwarted, Congress should
  determine the political future of the
  rebellious states. According to the Republicans
  in Congress, the Confederate states forfeited
  their statehood when they seceded. In fact,
  Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts declared
  that the states had committed suicide by
  seceding, so they were treated like territories.
  Senator Sumner was a leader of the Radicals in
  Congress. Radicals were the Republicans who
  called for strict readmission standards and
  vigorous restructuring of the South.
• President Lincoln wanted to restore the Union
  quickly while allowing for a gradual and peaceful
  restructuring of the South. Before the war, he
  believed that if slavery could be contained in
  the South, and not expanded to the territories,
  the moral evil of slavery would eventually be
  overcome. In a similar patient way, he compared
  the rebirth of the South to the gentle process of
  hatching an egg saying, We shall sooner have the
  fowl by hatching the egg by smashing it. He
  considered reunification to be his duty as
  President.

23

• The Republicans in Congress, however, feared the
  return of the Southern Democrats. The Republicans
  had gained control of Congress when the South
  seceded. During the war, they were able to push
  through legislation that the southern
  representatives had blocked previously, such as a
  national banking system, higher tariffs, and the
  Homestead Act. The Republicans did not want the
  Southerners to reverse these policies. Also, many
  of the Republicans were abolitionists, and they
  wanted to make sure blacks were guaranteed equal
  rights before the southern states were readmitted.

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Different Plans for Reconstruction

• Lincolns plan for Reconstruction called for a
  generous way to readmit Southern states into the
  Union. For each state to be admitted, and for the
  occupying forces of the North to leave, 10 of
  the voting populace had to swear allegiance to
  the Union and the Constitution. Louisiana and
  Arkansas, both completely in Union control by
  1864, were readmitted to the Union that same year
  in this fashion.
• However, a twist of fate changed the tone of
  Reconstruction. On April 14, 1864, Lincoln and
  his wife attended a play at Fords Theater. John
  Wilkes Booth (1838-1865), a Confederate
  sympathizer, killed Lincoln by shooting him in
  the back of the head during the performance. Vice
  President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) became the
  new President for the remainder of Lincolns
  second term. Johnson was sympathetic to white
  Southerners and advocated a mild form of
  Reconstruction that allowed the whites to
  maintain their power and keep blacks put of
  office. Before Congress could convene, the state
  government in the South passed a series of Black
  Codes. While securing some basic rights for
  blacks, these codes, in effect, made blacks
  second-class citizens. For example, blacks could
  not own weapon, meet together after sundown, or
  marry whites.

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• Many people in the North felt that the Civil War
  would be meaningless if blacks were not given
  citizenship rights in the South. In addition, the
  public outrage in the North over Lincolns
  assassination was enormous. Politicians began
  demanding a harsher form of Reconstruction for
  the southern states. While Congress was not in
  session, President Johnson allowed all of the
  southern states to enter the Union under
  Lincolns plan for Reconstruction. The states
  elected Democrats who supported keeping whites in
  power and keeping blacks in various conditions of
  servitude. Furious that the President did not
  seek Congressional approval, Congress refused to
  seat the representatives from the South and
  quickly began its own stricter plan for
  Reconstruction.

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Radical Reconstruction

• On June 13, 1866, Congress passed the 14th
  Amendment which stated, All persons born or
  naturalized in the United Statesare citizens.
  The amendment prohibited states from repaying the
  Confederacys war debts and from compensating
  slave owners for the loss of the slaves. It
  penalized states for denying the voting rights of
  male citizens and required that government
  officials who had joined the Confederacy be
  pardoned by Congress before returning to public
  office.
• During the summer of 1866, President Johnson
  offered strong opposition to the 14th Amendment
  and urged the southern states to reject it.
  Except for Tennessee, the southern states
  followed his advice. Riots in Memphis and New
  Orleans convinced Northerners that Johnsons
  leniency toward the South was not working.
  Northerners responded in the fall elections.
  Republicans won a majority in every northern
  state legislature, every northern governor's
  race, and more than a 2/3 majority in Congress,
  guaranteeing the ability to override Johnsons
  vetoes. In the spring of 1866, the Republican
  Congress passed its most radical plan for
  Reconstruction, despite Johnsons veto.

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The main features of this Reconstruction Act
(March 1867) were the following

1. With the exception of Tennessee, which had
   ratified the 14th Amendment, all former
   Confederate states would be administered as 5
   military districts.
2. Southern states would not be readmitted until
   they ratified the 14th Amendment.
3. Black citizens must be granted the right to vote.
4. Former Confederate officials could not hold
   public office.

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• Fearing that President Johnson would thwart the
  enforcement of the Reconstruction Act, Congress
  passed several laws which limited his power and
  strengthened the Reconstruction Act itself. While
  Congress was in recess for the summer, Johnson
  violated one of these laws by firing the
  Secretary of War. Upon returning to Washington,
  the House of Representatives threatened to
  impeach Johnson, which means removing him from
  office. On February 24, 1868, after several
  months of investigation, the House voted to
  impeach Johnson, even though the evidence against
  him was quite weak. He escaped a conviction in
  the Senate by one vote and finished his term as
  President. His political power had been
  significantly weakened by the whole process. At
  the end of his term, Johnson returned to
  Tennessee and was elected senator.

29
A New Kind of Politics

• Ready to capture the presidency, the Radicals
  nominated Ulysses S. Grant to be the Republican
  candidate in 1868. Grants popularity as a hero
  of the Civil War made him a strong candidate, and
  the 700,000 blacks voting for the first time
  ensured his victory. These new voters put a
  majority of Republicans in office, including many
  blacks who held office for the first time in the
  South. During the Reconstruction years
  (1868-1877), there were 14 black representatives
  elected to Congress and two black senators. Both
  senators were from Mississippi, including Hiram
  R. Revels who filled the seat last held by
  Jefferson Davis (former President of the
  Confederacy). On February 26.1869, Congress
  passed the 15th Amendment which guaranteed voting
  rights to all citizens regardless of race,
  color, or previous condition of servitude. The
  amendment was ratified by the states within a
  year.

30
Bitter Feeling In The South

• Throughout the South, whites had bitter feelings
  regarding the North and Northerners
• The South was bitter about the loss of the war
  and slaves.
• They were angry at Northerners for imposing
  Reconstruction on them.
• While supremacists called Republicans traitors to
  their race.
• They resented the high taxes which paid for the
  Reconstruction programs. These taxes were a
  double burden because of the economic hardships
  caused by the war.
• They blamed corruption in government on
  Reconstruction, Republicans, and black
  politicians.
• They resented carpetbaggers and scalawags.

31

• Carpetbaggers were people who came from the North
  to do business in the South. Many were Union army
  officers who stayed in the South for the climate
  or the opportunities they saw. Others were
  teachers, ministers, or workers for the
  Freedmens Bureau. It is estimated that 2/3 of
  them were trained as lawyers, doctors, and
  engineers. White Southerners derided them for
  supporting blacks and accused them of seeking
  opportunities for themselves at the expense of
  others.
• Scalawags were Southerners who supported
  Reconstruction. Some scalawags had supported the
  Union during the War and agreed with
  Reconstruction. Others accepted it as inevitable.
  Regardless of their reasoning, some newspapers
  would publish their names and recommend that they
  be shunned by the community.

32

• Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), used
  terrorism and violence to intimidate blacks and
  other minorities. This secretive organization was
  designed to remove from power the people in
  Reconstruction governments who were giving rights
  to blacks. Dressed in hooded white robes,
  Klansmen would frequently burn crosses in the
  front yards of people they wished to intimidate
  or kill by lynching.
• In response to the growing terrorist activities
  of the KKK, President Grant approved measures in
  Congress which made it a federal crime to
  interfere with the civil rights of blacks,
  especially the right to vote. In addition, the
  President was authorized to declare martial law
  (military rule) if the rights of blacks in a
  particular state were violated. These measures
  were called the Punitive Force Acts of 1870 and
  1871. Union forces in the South were small, so
  they were unable to stop the Klansmen from
  terrorizing blacks and preventing them from
  voting. Only in South Carolina, where Grant
  declared martial law, was the Klans influence
  broken.

33
Corruption in Government During Grants Presidency

• Southerners blamed Reconstruction and black
  politicians for the corruption they saw in
  government, but there seemed to be a general
  moral lapse affecting the country after the war.
  Bribery, lying, and stealing infected all levels
  of government and business in both the North and
  South. After the war, the government undertook
  many building projects. Schools, roads, and
  railroads that had been destroyed of left in
  disrepair during the war needed attention. This
  large scale building effort provided many
  opportunities for corrupt business dealings. In
  the building of the first transcontinental
  railroad, a small group of Union Pacific
  stockholders involved several politicians of both
  parties, including the Vice President, in
  swindling money from the government.
• Though President Grant showed strong military
  leadership in the Civil War, he was a weak
  political leader who depended exceedingly on his
  advisers. These advisers proved to be
  inexperienced and corrupt. On a national level,
  excessive speculation and widespread corruption
  led eventually to an economic panic and
  depression in 1873.

34
The End of Reconstruction

• As political corruption and economic difficulties
  began to claim attention, the memories of the
  Civil War faded and the drive for Radical
  Reconstruction weakened. The leading Radicals
  left Congress. Representative Thaddeus Stevens
  died in 1868, Benjamin Wade lost his seat in the
  Senate the following year, and Senator Charles
  Sumner dies in 1874. In 1872, Congress passed a
  law which allowed almost all former Confederates
  to vote and hold public office again. That same
  year, the Freedmens Bureau disappeared due to
  lack of funding from Congress. After years of
  fighting for civil rights for blacks, the members
  of the abolitionists movement ran out of steam.
  Business leaders wanted to invest in new
  enterprises in the South, but they feared the
  unsettled Reconstruction governments. They
  believed ending Reconstruction would stabilize
  the politics of the South, providing good
  opportunities for investment.
• Southerners agreed, blaming Reconstruction and
  blacks for continued problems in the South.
  Building on the bitter feelings in the South and
  intimidating black voter, white southern
  Democrats gradually redeemed of regained power
  in state legislatures. In the presidential
  election of 1876, the Democrats returned to power.

35
Presidential Election of 1876

• Because of the bad economy and the various
  scandals that had surrounded President Grant, the
  Democrats were hopeful that their candidate,
  Samuel Tilden (Governor of New York) would win
  the election. The Republicans put their support
  behind the Governor of Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes.
  Tilden received almost 300,000 more popular votes
  than Hayes, but he needed one more electoral vote
  to win the election. Nineteen votes were disputed
  in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. In
  these states, the Republicans and the Democrats
  had established rival boards of election
  officials, and each board was reporting different
  results. To settle the dispute, Congress
  appointed an Electoral Commission comprised of
  seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one
  Independent. At the last minute, the Independent
  left the Commission, and he was replaced by a
  Republican. The Commission decided the votes
  belonged to Hayes, and he was elected President.
  The Democrats were outraged at the apparent
  dishonesty of this whole process. In order to
  keep the peace, the Democrats said they would let
  Hayes win if Republicans would end
  Reconstruction. This compromise is known as the
  Compromise of 1877.

36
The Main Points of the Compromise were

• The Democrats agreed to accept the election
  results.
• The Republicans agreed to
• appoint a Southerner to the Presidents cabinet
• provide federal money for railroads in the South
  and for flood control along the Mississippi River
• and most importantly, to withdraw federal troops
  from the South.
• This Compromise essentially ended Reconstruction.
• When the South returned to the hands of white
  Southerners, blacks lost the support of the
  federal government and many of the social and
  political gains of the Reconstruction era. Freed
  slaves had their freedom, but it was severely
  limited. States passed laws requiring blacks and
  whites to use separate facilities in restaurants,
  hospitals, railroads, school, and street cars.
  These laws, known as Jim Crow Laws, also imposed
  literacy tests and poll taxes which prevented
  blacks from voting, despite the 15th Amendment.
  The Supreme Court supported these laws, and they
  remained in effect until the 1950s.