Topic 9 - The Reconstruction Era (1865-1877)

Lesson 1 - Early Reconstruction

Early Reconstruction

At the end of the Civil War, the future looked bleak to many southerners. Across the South, cities and farms lay in ruins. All southerners, black or white, faced an unfamiliar new world. At the same time, a shattered nation had to find a way to become whole again.

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Examine this photograph showing the destruction suffered by the South. List three or four steps the South would have to take to begin rebuilding.

Guiding Questions

What economic, political, and social problems did the United States face after the Civil War?
What steps were taken initially during Reconstruction?
How did the assassination of Lincoln and the inauguration of a new President lead to conflict?

Vocabulary

freedmen
Reconstruction
amnesty
Freedmen’s Bureau
Thirteenth Amendment

Academic Vocabulary

alternative
intervene

The Effects of the Civil War

After four years of war, both northerners and southerners had to adjust to a changed world. The adjustment was far more difficult in the South.

Problems in the North

Despite their victory, northerners faced a number of economic problems. Some 800,000 returning Union soldiers needed jobs. The government was canceling its war orders, and factories were laying off workers. Still, the North’s economic disruption was temporary. Boom times quickly returned.

The North lost more soldiers in the war than the South did. However, only a few battles had taken place on northern soil.

Northern farms and cities were hardly touched. One returning Union soldier remarked, “It seemed . . . as if I had been away only a day or two, and had just taken up . . . where I had left off.” However, thousands of soldiers suffered wounds from the war, many of which included missing limbs and other painful injuries.

The North faced political problems, too. There was disagreement about how to bring the South back into the Union and what to do with newly freed African Americans. Many wanted to punish southerners for what they had done, while others wanted a more moderate approach.

Problems in the South

Economic conditions in the South were far worse than in the North. Confederate soldiers had little chance of taking up where they had left off. In some areas, every house, barn, and bridge had been destroyed.

Two thirds of the South’s railroad tracks had been turned into twisted heaps of scrap. The cities of Columbia, Richmond, and Atlanta had been leveled.

The war wrecked the South’s financial system. After the war, Confederate money was worthless. People who had loaned money to the Confederate government were never repaid. Many southern banks closed, and depositors lost their savings.

The war changed southern society forever. Almost overnight, there was a new class of nearly four million people known as freedmen—men and women who had been freed from slavery. Under slavery, they could not own property or learn to read or write. What would become of them? How could the South cope with this drastic change?

These economic and social problems combined with political problems. It was unclear how the southern states would run their governments. No legal systems were in place to protect African Americans, and many white southerners feared African Americans gaining political power. Also, many white politicians who had held office in the Confederacy were forbidden from politics.

Overall, the economic differences between the agrarian South and industrial North increased after the war. The northern economy picked up, while the South struggled to rebuild. Many southerners resented northerners coming in to “fix” southern problems. The ruined economy made recovery especially hard.

Analyze Images

For this family, as for many other freedmen, life after emancipation still involved working in the fields for white people.

Draw Conclusions

After their emancipation, why did many freedmen continue to work as farm laborers?

Environmental Damage from the War

Because most of the fighting had been in the South, the region’s physical environment suffered heavily from the war.

Many southern farms had become battlefields. Fields and buildings were destroyed, and battle debris littered the landscape. Other farms in the South were deliberately destroyed by Union troops.

Forests were destroyed as well. Soldiers cut down trees to build fortifications and campfires, and artillery and fires damaged other forests.

Animals also suffered. Mules and horses used in the war died by the thousands. Hungry soldiers captured livestock for food. Union soldiers killed the livestock they found as they swept through Georgia.

Analyze Images

Like other major southern cities, Atlanta lay in ruins after the Civil War.

Use Visual Information Examine the image and list the types of structures that were destroyed.

READING CHECK

Summarize the political, economic, and social difficulties faced by the South after the war.

Causes and Effects of Reconstruction

The era following the Civil War became known as Reconstruction, or the physical, political, and social rebuilding of the South. Lincoln wanted to make it easy for southerners to rejoin the Union. The sooner the nation was reunited, he believed, the faster the South could rebuild.

Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction

As early as 1863, Lincoln outlined his Ten Percent Plan for Reconstruction. Under this plan, a southern state could form a new government after 10 percent of its voters swore an oath of loyalty to the United States. The new government had to abolish slavery. Voters could then elect members of Congress and take part in the national government once again.

Lincoln’s plan also offered amnesty, or a government pardon, to Confederates who swore loyalty to the Union. Amnesty would not apply to the former leaders of the Confederacy, however.

Lincoln Rejects a Rival Proposal

Many Republicans in Congress thought the Ten Percent Plan was too generous to the rebels. In 1864, they passed an alternative plan, the Wade-Davis Bill. It required a majority of white men in each southern state to swear loyalty to the Union. It also denied the right to vote or hold office to anyone who had volunteered for the Confederacy. Lincoln refused to sign the Wade-Davis Bill because he felt it was too harsh.

The Freedmen’s Bureau Addresses Economic and Social Needs

One month before Lee surrendered, Congress passed a bill creating the Freedmen’s Bureau, a government agency to help former slaves. Lincoln signed the bill.

The Freedmen’s Bureau gave food and clothing to former slaves. It also tried to find jobs for freedmen. The bureau helped poor whites as well. It provided medical care for more than one million people.

One of the bureau’s most important tasks was to set up schools for freedmen. Most of the teachers were volunteers, often women from the North. Grandparents and grandchildren sat side by side in the classroom. Charlotte Forten, an African American volunteer from Philadelphia, wrote:

Primary Source

“It is wonderful how a people who have been so long crushed to the earth . . . can have so great a desire for knowledge, and such a capacity for attaining it.”

—Charlotte Forten, article in the Atlantic Monthly

The Freedmen’s Bureau laid the foundation for the South’s public school system. It also created colleges for African Americans, including today’s Howard University, Morehouse College, and Fisk University. Many graduates of these schools became teachers themselves. By the 1870s, African Americans were teaching in grade schools throughout the South.

Analyze Images

Freedmen’s Bureau schools like this one aimed to provide skills needed for employment and civic life.

Infer What do you think would be the most important skills and subjects to teach the former slaves?

READING CHECK

Check Understanding Why did President Lincoln want to make it easy for the South to rejoin the Union?

Abraham Lincoln Is Assassinated

President Lincoln hoped to persuade Congress to accept his Reconstruction plan. However, he never got the chance.

On April 14, 1865, just five days after Lee’s surrender, President Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. A popular actor who supported the Confederate cause, John Wilkes Booth, crept into the President’s box and shot Lincoln in the head. Lincoln died the next morning. Booth was later caught and killed in a barn outside the city.

The nation was plunged into grief. The assassination was significant because Lincoln was the first American President to be assassinated. Also, millions who had been celebrating the war’s end now mourned Lincoln’s death. His body was transported by train for burial in Springfield, Illinois, his hometown. Millions of Americans came to pay their respects along the route. “Now he belongs to the ages,” commented Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

Booth was part of a group of ten conspirators who had long been plotting to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. None of the other assassinations took place, although Seward was attacked by one of the conspirators. Four of Booth’s co-conspirators were hanged for their crimes, including Mary Surratt, the first woman executed by the United States.

Analyze Images

The first stage of Lincoln’s funeral processed from the White House to the Capitol.

Compare and Contrast How did Confederate and Union sympathizers feel about Lincoln’s assassination?

READING CHECK

Summarize the meaning behind Secretary of War Edwin Stanton’s statement about Lincoln.

President Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan

Vice President Andrew Johnson was now President. Johnson had represented Tennessee in Congress. When his state seceded, Johnson had remained loyal to the Union.

The Thirteenth Amendment Changes Life in the United States

Republicans in Congress believed Johnson would support a strict Reconstruction plan. But his plan was much milder than expected. It called for a majority of voters in each southern state to pledge loyalty to the United States. Each state also had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery throughout the nation. (As you read, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves in areas already under Union control.) Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment in January 1865. It was ratified in December that year.

The Thirteenth Amendment had a significant impact on life in the United States. Without slavery, the South developed new social and economic systems. Many newly freed African Americans were hired on plantations. Others moved to towns or to the North to find work. Many thousands searched for and reunited with family. And African Americans founded churches, freeing them from another form of white dominance.

Politically, the amendment overturned previous state laws and Supreme Court decisions upholding slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment gave Congress the power to intervene, and later to pass additional legislation protecting civil rights.

Analyze Images

Although they had been freed, African Americans like this laborer had few opportunities and would struggle for many years to gain even the most basic civil rights.

Use Visual Information What attitude does this man appear to express? Why do you think he posed for this picture?

Fighting in Congress

The southern states quickly met Johnson’s conditions. While Congress was in recess, the President approved their new state governments in late 1865. Voters in the South then elected representatives to Congress. Many of those elected had held office in the Confederacy. For example, Alexander Stephens, the former vice president of the Confederacy, was elected senator from Georgia.

Republicans in Congress were outraged. The men who had led the South out of the Union were being elected to the House and Senate. Plus, no southern state allowed African Americans to vote.

When the new Congress met, Republicans refused to let southern representatives serve. Instead, they set up a Joint Committee on Reconstruction to form a new plan for the South. The stage was set for a showdown between Congress and the President.

Analyze Political Cartoons

In this cartoon, President Johnson sympathizes with a former rebel while ignoring cruelty to a former slave.

Draw Conclusions Which side of the debate between Johnson and Congress does the cartoonist support? How do you know?

READING CHECK

Compare and Contrast Which key difference between Lincoln’s and Johnson’s Reconstruction plans caused problems in 1865?

Lesson Check

In what ways was amnesty an important part of Reconstruction?
Who were the freedmen, and what was the purpose of the Freedmen’s Bureau?
What was the purpose of the Thirteenth Amendment?
Identify Main Ideas What problems did the South face after the Civil War that the North did not?
Understand Effects Why did Republicans in Congress refuse to let newly elected southern representatives take their seats?
Writing Workshop: Generate Questions to Focus Research You will be writing a research paper on the Freedmen’s Bureau and its effects, and the restrictions placed on the rights and opportunities of African Americans in the Reconstruction-era South. Write questions that will help you narrow your research on the topic.

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