RECONSTRUCTION!!! - Page 5

unionblue · #41 04-15-2004, 05:50 AM

Friends,

A book review on Reconstruction that might be of some interest.

http://www.lilt.ilstu.edu/gmklass/fo...ngs/mcpher.htm

Thoughts?
Unionblue

unionblue · #42 05-11-2004, 09:38 PM

Friends,

Found this web site entitled, Jensen's Guide to Reconstruction History, 1861-1877.

http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/recon.htm

I also found a few interesting statements by Mr. Jensen. One of these statements is as follows:

The Confederacy used some radical financing with devastating consequences. It confiscated property owned by Yankees and postponed payment of debts owed foreigners. Extremely unpopular was the seizure ("impressment") of civilian goods by army sergeants who came around with an empty wagon and a book full of coupons. The coupons promised payment at some future date for whatever horses, mules, cattle, hogs, chickens, vegetables, grain, hardware, lumber, and fuel the sergeant could locate and cart away. Slaves were impressed into government construction projects and gunpowder factories. A hidden method of financing the war, but one critical in the South, was to postpone normal investment, repair and upkeep. Prewar stocks of food, clothing and equipment were used up without replenishment. The stock of animals shrank by one third. Property damaged by war or accident, or just used up in normal operations, was not replaced. The railroad system was ground to the nub like an overused pencil. Household items were in disrepair--by 1865, Whitelaw Reid noticed, "A set of forks with whole tines is a curiosity. Clocks and watches have nearly all stopped....Hair brushes and tooth brushes have all worn out." The myth after the war was that the ****yankees had stripped the countryside bare. Indeed there was systematic destruction in some areas, but overall the total wealth fell 43%, and the devastation was practically as bad in areas that escaped the Yankee soldiers--indeed they never entered a majority of counties in the deep South. There the impressment officers wore gray uniforms*. In four years the Confederacy itself used up the substance of the southern economy, and it would not fully recover for many decades."

*Yankees occasionally impressed when deep in rebel territory, as in Sherman's March; their coupons were actually worth real money. No payment was made for the freed slaves (except those in the District of Columbia). In economic terms emancipation represented a transfer of wealth from one group of southerners (white slave owners) to another (the freedmen themselves). The postwar South was improverished because the new system extracted less work out of people, the region's crops brought lower prices, and the highly productive new industrial order bypassed the region.

Another interesting statement by Mr. Jensen. Probably half the savings of the North went into the war effort, but there was much left over to invest in new factories, railroads, and enterprises. The private sector flourished in the North, and shriveled away in the South. In Philadelphia, one new factory opened every week of the war; in the South, one closed every week.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on May 11, 2004)

thea_447 · #43 05-13-2004, 12:20 AM

I would reiterate my posts here on the Reconstruction thread of:
Nov. 19, 2003 12:21 a.m.,

Feb.1, 2004,11:59 p.m.,

and APHillbilly's post of:
Feb. 2, 2004, 4:37 p.m..

In fact it is well worth the time to re-read this entire thread.

It has become abundantly clear that Reconstruction was and IS a devastating period for the South.

unionblue · #44 05-13-2004, 08:08 PM

Thea,

I have no objections to rereading this entire thread. Just as long as we reread all of it and can accept the idea that new information may come out once in a while.

Having read two new books on the period concerning Reconstruction, I am a bit more aware of the conditions in the South directly after the war. The book, The Day Dixie Died, by Thomas and Debra Goodrich, describes the Southern occupation from 1865-1866. Not a good time to be in the South by any means.

As for the often quoted theory that slavery was about to go from the South before the coming of the war, I find that concept even more hard to believe after reading the book, The Freedmen's Bureau and Reconstruction: Reconsiderations, edited by Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller. The book is a series of essays from many authors from both Northern and Southern colleges and universities and makes for very interesting reading concerning Southern attitudes towards freedmen and how they wished to keep them in a near as slave-like condition as possible.

New information surfaces, new books are written, ideas and concepts are confronted and challenged. The biggest task is to keep on learning.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

thea_447 · #45 05-13-2004, 08:45 PM

Neil, I absolutely agree about the need for injecting new material in order that we keep learning from the past.

I was merely suggesting that newcomers might be very interested in reading the entire thread thus far.

It not only helps to know what we've already discussed but gives all of us an idea of what will prove useful to continue the thread.

YMOS,

unionblue · #46 05-13-2004, 09:50 PM

Thea,

Thank you for your clarification on the above post. I appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

unionblue · #47 05-20-2004, 05:09 AM

Thea,

Found this story in the book, The Day Dixie Died, Southern Occupation 1865-1866, by Thomas and Debra Goodrich, in chapter 2, titled Outrage. The chapter deals mainly with the acts of violence committed upon those with Southern sympathies after the assassination of Lincoln. I found this account especially disturbing:

"At another occupied city, the wife of a Federal officer who, together with her husband, boarded with a Southern widow described what happened when news from Ford's Theater arrived."

Every house was ordered to be draped in black, and where the rebel inmates refused, it was done for them...A squad of Northern boys organized themselves into an inspection committee and went from street to street to see that no house was left undraped. When I suggested to Mrs. Stuart that she had better hang out something black and save trouble, she turned upon me and exclaimed passionately: "I'd rather die first..."

The committee...came down the street upon which Mrs. Stuart lived, and seeing the house undraped, halted before it. There was a dead silence for a few moments that was more ominous than curses would have been. Then hoarse cries of 'rebel sympathizer' broke from the crowd. The ringleader...stalked forward and pushed open the door without ceremony and demanded to know why the house was not draped. I sprang forward and stood between him and Mrs. Stuart and tried to explain to him that my husband had gone down the street to get us some black, and that as soon as it came I would hang it out. 'Yes; but she must hang it up,' he cried, pointing threateningly at Mrs. Stuart. 'Every ****ed rebel must this day kiss the dust for this dastardly act. She must do it herself...It must be something of her own, too.'

'What, I show a sign of mourning for Abraham Lincoln--I, who but for him would not be husbandless and childless today!' came from Mrs. Stuart's lips.

'Well, now, we'll see about that,' he replied. 'Come, boys,' he called to the squad without, 'some of you hold this she-devil while the rest of us search her house for something black.' The front room, dining hall and kitchen downstairs and my bedroom upstairs yielded nothing, but when they entered Mrs. Stuart's private room, just back of mine, I knew from the shouts of triumph that they had found something; but I was hardly prepared for the sight when a few minutes later they came rushing down the stairs waving with frantic gesticulations Mrs. Stuart's long crape veil; the veil that she had worn as a widow for her husband ... and ... her son ...

'Here, madame, we have found just the thing,' cried the leader, 'and you yourself must hang it up, right in front, too, where all may see it, or, by George, your life won't be worth a candle...!' She stared at them for a few seconds with eyes in which hate, horror and revenge strove for mastery. Then, with a mighty effort, she shook herself free from her captors and in a strangely calm voice said: 'Give it to me, I will hang it up where you wish. Only leave the room, leave the premises; go across the street; you can see me from there; and you, madame.' she said, turning to me, 'you go with them...'

We all crossed the street and looked anxiously at Mrs. Stuart's front door... Just then she came out on the veranda. I noticed she had changed her dress since we had come away. She was all in black--her best black; her mourning weeds. She carried a chair in one hand, while the crape veil was thrown over her shoulder and wound once about her neck. We all watched her intently. Her movements were slow and deliberate. She mounted the chair and...then she took the veil...and threw it through the opening, while at the same time she put something else through. What it was we could not tell at that distance, and then...she gave her chair a vigorous push with her foot and her body hung suspended in midair. Several seconds elapsed, in which we all stood as if frozen to the spot, staring at that dangling body across the street. Then, with a cry of horror...we rushed over...[But] it was too late.

Under the crape veil...with a strong cord firmly knotted about her neck, hung all that was mortal of that once proud Southern woman.

There are other stories about how angry Northerners vented their rage against anyone who welcomed the death of Lincoln. At Indianapolis, five Federal soldiers who clapped and announced they would "have a hoe-down" on Lincoln's grave were quickly arrested. Dragging the men outside, comrades hung the culprits by their necks so that only their toes touched. Finally, after the faces of all had turned black, the five were cut down.

In Nashville, a man on Church Street was heard to mutter that he was "glad the ****ed abolition son of a ••••• was dead; he ought to have died long ago!" "Before the words had fairly left his lips," said a bystander, "a soldier shot him through the heart, and plunging his bayonet into the falling body, pinned him to the ground!"

One man in the Capital, a man who could not contain his happiness, was overheard expressing joy in the assassination. "The words hardly left his mouth," wrote a witness, "before the bullet from the pistol of a Union soldier went crashing through his brain."

In New York, one man was clubbed by a policeman and sentenced to six months in jail for exclaiming, "Old Abe, that son of a •••••, is dead, and he ought to have been killed long ago."

"It is sad news...," Jefferson Davis said upon learning of Lincoln's death. "I am sorry. We have lost our best friend in the court of the enemy." When the message was read to the cavalrymen escorting Davis, some began to cheer, Davis raised his hand for silence. Although Lincoln had been a remorseless foe of secession, Jefferson Davis understood better than most that the slain US President harbored no hatred or animosity for the South.

When the news of Lincoln's death was revealed, General Sherman's soldiers were initially stunned to silence. When the shock of the soldiers began to wear away, a murderous rage swiftly took control.

"Awful was the excitement," recorded one Yankee soldier. "The boys are raving about it. Revenge is uttered from most every lip."

"May the Lord have mercy upon the Country we pass through and the Rebels we catch...," warned another Federal soldier. "Few men will stop from committing any outrage or crime they may wish to...I hope Andrew Johnson will put down the screws tight [and] by thunder the army will sustain him if it hangs every man & burns every house in the whole South." Despite Sherman's precautions, thousands of his men marched on Raleigh that night, determined to burn the capital to the ground. Only the muzzles of cannons and Sherman's tireless efforts prevented a wholesale massacre.

I thought you would be interested in what I had read.

YMOS,
Unionblue

thea_447 · #48 04-06-2005, 04:17 PM

"It is not enough that they should stop their hostility and are repentant. They should present fruits meet for repentance." --Senator Jacob Collamer of Vermont

Eric L. McKitrick explains what this implied (Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction) Chicago, 1960, pp. 15-41.): "The victor needs to be assured that his triumph has been invested with the fullest spiritual and ceremonial meaning. ......He must know that his expenditures have gone for something, that the righteousness of his principles had been given its vindication. The assurance must be accorded him in terms that go well beyond the physical and objective; he must have ritual proofs. The conquered enemy must be prepared to give symbolic satisfaction as well as physical surrender...he must act out his defeat."

According to this view, the victorious Republicans would not receive the assurance required for restoring Southerners to national equity until they ceased to be Southerners, admitted that all they believed and had fought for was wrong, that they repented in sackcloth and ashes for all their crimes, and were completely made over in mind and spirit to a prescribed pattern. Besides this, they should, in complete sincerity, act out these changes by a complete repudiation not only of what had been Southern mores and beliefs, but also of all the allegiance to the Confederacy implied. Republican demands, of course, couldn't be stated in such blunt terms, or even considered in these terms (except by a few so-called Radical Republicans), but they could be felt well down below the level of expression by the many. It would take some Southern action, some expression of Southern humility, some sign of a revolutionary change of heart, and a complete rejection of all old values as evidence of repentance.

Two nights before his assassination, Lincoln elaborated on his own ideas.

"We all agree that the seceded states, so called, are out of their proper relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those states, is to again get them into the proper practical relation. I believe that it is not only possible, but in fact easier to do this without deciding or even considering whether these states have ever been out of the Union than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had even been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these states and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the states from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out of it. (Abraham Lincoln, Collected Works (New Brunswick, N.J., 1953-1955), vol. 8, pp 403-405.)

Such a proposal for reconstruction was immediately rejected by other Republicans who, under the leadership of Henry Winter Davis, Benjamin F. Wade, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, Zachariah Chandler, and George W. Julian, introduced their own plan. This one left state reconstruction to a majority whose past conduct alone should be considered; it was passed by Congress.

Charles Sumner wrote on April 18, 1865, "It is probable that the policy towards leading rebels will be modified. " And indeed this is precisely what happened.

With the appointment of military governors in different states, the issue between "resumption" and "reconstruction" had been clearly revealed. Lincoln's death checked action only temporarily.

The New York World wrote, Sept. 1865, "the real leaders" of the Republican party "see that unless the South can be trodden down and kept under foot for long years, or unless they can give the negroes the ballot, and control it in their hands, their present political supremacy is gone forever."

Thaddeus Stevens, said "there can be no fanatics in the case of genuine liberty." He'd already advocated the seizing of "every foot of land" and every dollar of their property as our armies go along" and sending soldiers there "with arms in their hands to occupy the heritage of traitors." He rejected Lincoln's program as absurd. The idea that the "rebel states," four years at war as a separate power and with no representation in Congress, were all the time still in the Union, made no sense. It was "merely a pernicious abstraction." The South was conquered territory, and the Republican party could do with it whatever it saw fit. (Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2d session, p. 3127.)

The conquest of the Southern spirit had begun.

I'll speak my Southern English
Just as natural as I please;
I'm in the Heart of Dixie -
Dixie's in the Heart of me.

unionblue · #49 04-07-2005, 12:02 AM

Thea,

Have you read Eric Forner's book on the reconstruction period?

Unionblue

thea_447 · #50 04-13-2005, 07:03 PM

In answer to your question Neil, no I have not read that book yet.

One aspect of the war that we haven't paid too much attention to is that this war came just at the time when the North as a section was catching the full sweep of the industrial revolution. J.F.C.Fuller, the English military authority, wrote: "The first of the unlimited industrialized wars was the Civil War in America. It was the first great conflict of the age of steam, and the aim of the Northern or Federal States, was unconditional surrender, that is, total victory. Its character was, therefore, that of a crusade, and because of this, as well as because it put to test the military developments of the Industrial Revolution, it opened a radically new chapter in the history of war."

Gov. John Andrew, in the New York World, June 23, 1865 wrote:
"Let us hold on to the power we now have to do right, to protect the loyal, to rebuild the state, to re-establish society, to secure the liberty of the peoples and the safety of the Union. Let it be used with parental kindness and in the temper of conciliation. But hold on to the power and in the fear of God let it be used. "

Because of the demands of war, the North entered the modern world of planned production, organized social action , and concentration on efficiency. The direct and immediate effect of the new technology on the fighting itself was to increase its destructiveness. (The South for its failure to keep step paid in defeat and in years of "backwardness", thus the sectional differences, conflicting demands, and values that had led to the war were far greater at the end than they were at the beginning.) The sections were further apart to understand each other, to tolerate, to discuss rationally, and to compromise than they had been before. The democratic process would have little to do with Reconstruction.

These technical changes are revealed in the frightening casualty figures. Out of a total male population of some 6,000,000, some 618,000 men gave their lives. In some battles each army lost a fourth of its complement. Some regiments in battles suffered 70 to 80 percent casualties. In all, the best estimates that historians have been able to make show that the Union deaths were over 360,000; Confederate deaths, uncertain, but something over 258,000--or a fourth of Confederacy men in arms. (All of these figures are subject to whatever historian you happen to be reading at the moment.)

Southern losses were proportionately much heavier than those of the North, both in killed and wounded in battle. Had the North lost as many in proportion as the South, it would have suffered more than a million casualties instead of 360,000. The South paid a fearful price, due in part to the fact that its armies had not profited to the same degree as those of the North from the technology of the industrial revolution, and in part to the character of its men.

J.F.C. Fuller noted that "except for his lack of discipline, the Southern soldier was probably the finest individual fighter of his day." But, as Gen. A.P. Hill pointed out:
"Self-reliant always, obedient when he chose to be, impatient of drill and discipline, he was unsurpassed as a scout or on the skirmish line. Of the shoulder-to-shoulder courage, bred to drill and discipline, he knew nothing and cared less. Hence, on the battle field he was more of a free-lance than a machine. Whoever saw a Confederate line advancing that was not as crooked as a cow's horn? Each ragged rebel yelling on his own hook and aligning on himself...In battle he fought like a Berserker--out of it he ceased to be a soldier--straggling was an inalienable right."

Again the historian, J.F.C. Fuller came to the conclusion: "The Union soldier was a semi-regular, the Confederate a semiguerrilla."

In conclusion, if this were true in war, how could it have been different in Reconstruction? All we can see is that both sides proceeded into Reconstruction as they had in war, with about the same results.

One other thing about this modern war was that it was a war fought on a whole people by a whole people. Efforts were not confined to battlefields. Everything and anything in its path was destroyed by the army.

Sherman would later estimate that he did $100 million worth of damage, of which only $20 million inured to the North's advantage. All this was involved in Reconstruction as a purpose to be fulfilled and as something to be remembered by those who endured.