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Civil War and Reconstruction
Chapter 6
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.
• 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
Pemberton’s Confederate forces at Vicksburg for almost two months.
On the 4th of July, Grant’s forces conquered the city. Consequently, the
Mississippi River came under the control of the Union.
• 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.
• 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.
• Atlanta (September 2, 1864) – Three months after Sherman’s 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.
• Sherman’s 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 Lee’s
army with their combined forces. Sherman’s army continued its
destruction as it moved north through the Carolinas, which included
burning Columbia, South Carolina. Sherman’s 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.
• 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.
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.
• 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
man’s 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.
• 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.
• 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
• In an effort to meet the immediate needs of
those displaced by the war, Congress
established the Freedmen’s 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.
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 couldn’t 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.
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 allblack 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.
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 Freedmen’s 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.
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.
• 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.
• 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.
Different Plans for Reconstruction
• Lincoln’s 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 Ford’s Theater. John Wilkes Booth (18381865), 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 Lincoln’s 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.
• 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
Lincoln’s 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 Lincoln’s 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.
Radical Reconstruction
• On June 13, 1866, Congress passed the 14th Amendment which
stated, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States…are
citizens.” The amendment prohibited states from repaying the
Confederacy’s 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
Johnson’s 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
Johnson’s vetoes. In the spring of 1866, the Republican Congress
passed its most radical plan for Reconstruction, despite Johnson’s
veto.
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.
• 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.
A New Kind of Politics
• Ready to capture the presidency, the Radicals nominated
Ulysses S. Grant to be the Republican candidate in 1868.
Grant’s 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.
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.
• 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
Freedmen’s 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.
• 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 Klan’s influence broken.
Corruption in Government During
Grant’s 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.
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 Freedmen’s 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.
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.
The Main Points of the Compromise were:
•
•
1)
2)
3)
•
•
The Democrats agreed to accept the election results.
The Republicans agreed to
appoint a Southerner to the President’s 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.