Download Unit 6

Unit 6
Section 1
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Civil War, Reconstruction and reaction
The ”better angles of our nature” didn’t win out
pages 421 – 508
Pages 420 – 441
What did the Union go to war to accomplish? What did the Confederacy go to war to accomplish?
Which side had the more difficult task?
Someone has remarked that the south died of states’ rights? How is that possible?
Why did both sides have to resort to the first national drafts in US history? Why did it become a
“rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight?”
What advantages did the north have in a long drawn out war of attrition? Why was the south
unable to pay for the war? How did their economic choices help doom the “cause?”
What personality traits made Jeff Davis a less than ideal war time leader?
How did the Lincoln administration manage to keep MD, KT and MI in the Union? What does
that tell us about the flexibility of the northern president?
The North’s grand strategy was called the Anaconda Plan. Why was it named after a huge
constrictor?
What lessons did both sides take from the first real battle at Bull Run (Manassas)?
In the west, why was Union General Grant so interested in gaining the Mississippi Valley?
Why was the carnage of the big battles to appalling? How did the women help out? How was that
a break from the Cult of Domesticity thing? How was it part of the old cult?
What were George B McClellan’s strengths and weaknesses as a commanding general? How is
the failure of his Peninsular campaign ( 1862) proof of his shortcomings?
Why did General Lee leave the defensive in the fall of 1862 and invade Maryland? Why was this
a threat that Lincoln took very seriously? Who won the battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg)? Why
was McClellan fired again after the battle? How did Lincoln take advantage of the situation after
the battle?
What goals was Lincoln able to further by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation? How did he
justify what he had previously said was illegal? How did African-Americans react to the
Emancipation?
Why did Lincoln have to keep finding new generals for the Army of the Potomac in the east?
How did Lee take advantage of this incompetence?
How did a search for shoes lead to the biggest – and deadliest battle ever fought in the western
hemisphere?
What 2 Union victories cost the Confederacy the war?
It’s been said that the Union fought the war with one hand tied behind its back. What does that
mean and is there evidence to support it?
Why did Lincoln eliminate the writ of habeas corpus? Was he justified in doing so? What
precedents were set by the Lincoln administration in the area of personal freedoms during war
time?
What Republican Party domestic goals were carried out by the Congress and the Lincoln
administration? Why were these programs important?
What do the New York Draft riots tell us about the nation in 1863? How did the role of women
change during the war?
Section 2
“God has given to both sides this terrible war”
pages 441 - 450
1. How did the governors of NC and GA undermine the Confederacy? Bet that’s not in the 8th grade
history book.
2. What factors brought on the internal dissolution of the Confederacy?
3. How did these conditions force women to become much more assertive?
4. Describe General Grant’s plan to end the war. How did he change the very nature of the war?
Why was Grant called the “Butcher” in northern newspapers?
5. How was the battle around Petersburg different from those other battles fought in the east? ( But
it was very similar to Grant’s victory at Vicksburg)
6. Why was Sherman’s taking of Atlanta a major blow to the Confederacy? Why was Sherman’s
sack of Atlanta a big victory for the Lincoln administration?
7. After Atlanta, what did Sherman propose to do? What was his goal?
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Describe the tone Lincoln laid out in his second inaugural address.
Why did Lee finally evacuate the trenches around Petersburg and let Richmond fall? Describe the
scene when Lincoln visited Richmond in early April, 1865.
10. Why did Lee finally surrender his formerly great Army of Northern Virginia? When and where
did that ceremony take place? What happened at Bennett’s Place on April 26, 1865?
11. What made the April 14th performance of Our American Cousin distinctly serious?
12. Why did former Confederate General, Joe Johnston, call Lincoln’s assassination? “The greatest
possible calamity to the south?”
Section 3
The Scene of the Crime
pages 460 – 468
1. Why was there bound to be trouble between the newly freed Black and whites?
2. Describe the condition of the south as the veterans returned to their homes in the summer of 1865.
Why did southerners come to view the war as the “Lost Cause?”
3. What were the goals of the Freedmen? How did the Freedmen’s Bureau try to make those goals a
reality? What were the successes and failures of the Freedmen’s Bureau? Why did whites refuse
to cooperate?
4. Where did the “40 acres and a mule” come from? Why did so few Freedmen ever get any land?
5. Why did most Freedmen get sucked into “working on shares?” How did it work? Why was it a
trap few escaped from?
6. Why did the African-American population of southern cities grow after the war? What kinds of
jobs were open to them?
7. Discuss the role that churches played in the African –American community.
8. Why did the federal government have to get involved in the day to day management of southern
affairs?
9. What was Lincoln’s plan to bring the former Confederate states back into the Union? Why did
Lincoln pocket veto the Wade-Davis Bill?
10. What was the disagreement between conservative Democrats and moderate and radical
Republicans over the status of the former Confederate states?
11. What was Johnson’s plan to readmit the southern states? Why do you think that even these
modest requirements were despised in the south?
12. What were Black Codes? What did they do and how did they do it?
13. What was the purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1866? Why did Johnson veto it?
14. Why did Congress propose the 14th Amendment? What did it do?
Section 4
Radical Reconstruction
pages 468 – 476
1. What happened to any southern state which refused to ratify the 14 th Amendment? Which
southern state did that?
2. Under the radicals and the Reconstruction Act, who could and who could not vote in the south?
What did the southern states have to do to get back into the Union with full rights?
3. Why did Johnson willfully fire Edwin Stanton? What happened as a result?
4. How did Johnson’s impeachment turn out?
5. What was “waving the bloody shirt?” Why do you suppose the Republicans were so concerned
with voting rights for African-Americans?
6. What did the 15th Amendment do?
7. How did those southern state constitutions passed under the Republicans differ from the old state
constitutions? Who supported these new governmental systems? What was a “scalawag?” A
“carpetbagger?”
8. How many African-Americans were elected to Congress by 1873? How many were elected to
state legislatures?
9. How did these reconstruction governments try to reach out to poor whites? How did taxes and
patronage kill these attempts? What was the final straw in ending the cooperation between whites
and blacks?
10. How did white terrorist organizations affect the society? How did one fall afoul of the Klan?
How did the 1871 Klan Act change responsibility for enforcing voting rights?
11. Why did radical reconstruction fail in the end? Do you agree with the book when it says that
reconstruction was overthrown – or did it just whimper and die?
12. Why did white southerners call it being “redeemed?” What does that tell us about them? How did
the south get redeemed?
13. What happened to the Civil Rights Act of 1875? What did it try to do?
14. How did they solve the “disputed election” of 1876? What did Hayes promise to do in return for
enough electoral votes to win? Why is it called the “Compromise of 1877?”
15. What happened to the hard earned rights of African-Americans in the south? Why didn’t anyone
care? How did White Democrats use the threat of Radical Reconstruction to keep everyone in line
for the next 100 years?
Section 5
the New (and Solid) South looks a lot like the old
Pages 482 – 496
Note: This will be the last we will hear of the south until the mid 20th century when we get to the civil
rights era. The southland will remain outside the American mainstream and as a result, beneath our
notice until the 4th quarter.
1. How did the south change in the years after the war?
2. How did the cities of the “new” south make the poverty of the country side even more apparent?
What does the book mean when it say the new apply more to the economy than the society?
3. What did they mean by the term, “the solid south?”
4. How did the economy of the south change after the war? What industries were established in the
south? Why did some industries move to the south? Why cotton and tobacco?
5. How is Durham an example of the New South? How did the new south depend on railroads?
How is NC a prime example of that?
6. How much of an impact did the new south really have on the region? Look at the numbers on
page 487! No real increase in percent of manufacturing! Decline in capital! Serious decline in
PCI! Wow! Is this great or what?
7. How did southern leaders persuade companies to come to the south? Why were wages so low?
How did low wage, low skill jobs affect the education system? How did that re-enforce the low
wage – low skill jobs? Did the south get what it deserved?
8. How was James “Bucky” Duke different from so many of his fellow southern businessmen?
9. Why did southerners move into the new cities in search of low paying, mindless jobs? How was
life different in the cities? Why did southern clergy preach against the evils of the big towns?
Were those warnings valid?
10. What happened to the yeoman farmer class? What choices did they have? Who exactly was it
who benefitted from the New South?
11. Why did cotton prices continue to fall? Why did they continue to grow more? How stupid were
they?
12. What reforms did the farmers want? Why didn’t anyone care what they wanted?
13. Why did the Grange movement achieve little to fix the situation?
14. Why was the Farmers’ Alliance more successful? Or was it? How was religion a unifying force
within the movement? Why didn’t the white farmers and the black farmers unite against the
railroads, the banks and the market?
15. How was the so-called “sub treasury” plan to work? Why didn’t it?
16. What reforms did the Populists want? Why did southern Populists reach out to AfricanAmericans? How did Tom Watson summarize the situation of the poor of both races in the south?
17. How was the Fusion in NC an example of what could be done when the dispossessed of both races
worked together? How did the Democrats restore themselves to what they saw as their rightful
place at the head of NC’s government?
18. Why did the role of women in the south change less after the war than in the north? What were
the only roles seen as fit for women? Why did the WCTU begin to advocate for women’s political
rights?
19. How do the beliefs of Mrs. Rebecca Felton demonstrate the liberal/ conservative divisions in the
reform movement in the south?
Section 6
Throwing the Race Card on the Table
pages 496 – 508
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While reading the account by T. McCants Stewart, did you find any thing surprising? What does
that say about the south between the end of Reconstruction and the end of the 1890’s?
Discrimination based on class, not race…sound familiar?
Why were the expectations of whites born after the war on a collusion course with blacks born
after the war? What does this say of white insecurity? Why were prosperous blacks frequently a
target?
Why did so many white fall for the racist rhetoric of the ruling class? What were the lines that
African-Americans could not cross? What happened if they did?
Why was integration less of an issue in the north than in the south?
Explain the contention made by Homer Plessy in Plessy v. Ferguson. How did the Supreme Court
decide the case? What is wrong with the concept of “separate but equal?” What were the laws
called that separated people by race? How did economic segregation follow social segregation?
Why did the southern ruling class decide to destroy the remaining political power of AfricanAmericans? List and explain the techniques they used to get around the 14th and 15th
amendments? Why didn’t anyone - except - African-Americans care? How was science used to
justify this state of affairs? What kinds of discrimination did blacks face in the north? Why were
there an increase in urban race “riots” – both north and south?
How did the rising middle class African-Americans try to cope with this situation? How did the
black middle class try to improve education for others? Why were black women able to push
harder than their husbands?
How did Booker T. Washington think that African-Americans should try to improve their lot?
What kinds of education did his Tuskegee Institute offer? What do you think of his approach?
What was the so called “Atlanta Compromise?’ Was this selling out? Or was it a practical
solution to a difficult problem?
How was W.E.B. Dubois’ background different from Washington’s? How might that explain the
differences in their approach? Why do you suppose the book doesn’t mention Dubois’ call to
educate the “talented tenth?” On what issues would he and Washington have agreed? On what
issues would they have disagreed?