CHAPTER 15

Blood and Freedom

1863 - 1867

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much … [power]. If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'" Congressman Abraham Lincoln during era of "Polk's War"  (Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, The Library of America)

"Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival." -- W. Edwards Deming, business consultant and author

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness. . . . One ever feels his two-ness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

“One fact and one alone explains the attitude of most recent writers toward Reconstruction; they cannot conceive of Negroes as men.”

W.E.B. DuBois

“I used to think that I should not care to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin in our camp; it would have seemed tame . . . .I needed no fiction when I had Fanny Wright. . .daily passing to and fro before my tent, with her shy little girl clinging to her skirts. Fanny was a modest little mulatto, a soldier’s wife, and a company laundress. She had escaped from the main-land in a boat, with that child and another. Her baby was shot dead in her arms, and she reached our lines with one child safe on earth and the other in heaven. I never found it needful to give any elementary instructions in courage to Fanny’s husband, you may be sure.”Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, 1869

Chapter Review

Explain the significance of the Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

Briefly describe the significance of Lincoln’s reelection in 1864, and explain how that outcome was achieved.

Describe the function of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Describe and evaluate the various plans for

Reconstruction of the South in the post Civil War years. Was Lincoln our “greatest” US president? Did the North win the Civil War while the South won

Reconstruction?

Overview

Chapter Concepts

“The Glory of War” African American soldiers, Draft riots Gettysburg Address Gen. Sherman’s Field Order No. 15, January 1865 – abandoned land

for Blacks Confederate invasion of New Mexico + Kit Carson and Navajo “Long

March” [Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides – 2006] Appomattox Courthouse John Wilkes Booth Radical Republicans 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 1868 – “equal protection of the

law” Andrew Johnson, impeachment [Tenure of Office Act] Reconstruction Act, Freedmen’s Bureau Black Codes, Ku Klux Klan

I. People at War: Spring 1863

Soldier life is harsh, with disease killing many Civilians on both sides begin to question reasons for war Lincoln’s critics become more vocal North begins to allow blacks to fight

Black Soldiers in the Union Army

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II. The Battlefields of Summer: 1863

Grant moves on Vicksburg Lee is defeated at Gettysburg and Vicksburg falls to Grant Immigrant battle losses contribute to draft riots in New York City Grant takes command of eastern theater Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address ties war to liberation of blacks

Vicksburg

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Battle of Gettysburg,

July 1-3, 1863

Virginia, 1863

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III. The Winter of Discontent: 1863 - 1864

Political foes oppose both Lincoln and Davis Prison camps earn terrible reputations Grant takes control of entire Union army Southerner Andrew Johnson becomes Lincoln’s running

mate in preparation for 1864 election Sherman’s March to Sea breaks will of South and

assures Lincoln’s re-election

Campaign for Atlanta, May-September 1864

Battle of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania

Election of 1864

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IV. From War to Reconstruction: 1865 - 1867

Thirteenth Amendment is enacted War ends on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse,

and Lincoln is assassinated soon after War wreaks havoc with people, economy, and society Emancipation brings less than true freedom to blacks in

South

Major political goal of blacks in South becomes gaining vote

Johnson’s reconstruction plans upset many, as do implementation of “black codes”

Radicals in Congress override Johnson and pass Fourteenth Amendment

Reconstruction Act divides and occupies South Northerners head South to help blacks but maintain

discrimination in own region

Territory of War

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Grant Against Lee in Virginia

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The Failed Promise of Reconstruction

Sharecropping Modest Gains and Future Victories

Slaughterhouse cases [1873] Citizenship rights remain under state control

United States v. Cruikshank [1876] The Enforcement Act applied only to violations of

Black rights by states and not individuals

 Congressional Reconstruction, 1865–1877 When Congress wrested control of Reconstruction policy from President Andrew Johnson, it divided the South into the five military districts depicted here. The commanding generals for each district held the authority both to hold elections and to decide who could vote.

Thaddeus Stevens One of the most outspoken Radical Republicans after the Civil War, Thaddeus Stevens served in the U.S. House of Representatives until his death in 1868. He chose to be buried in an African American cemetery.

Rep. Thaddeus Stevens 1792-1868 – helped secure Civil Rights Act of 1866, helped draft 14th Amendment, Military Reconstruction Act of

1867

Lincoln with son Tad on February 9th, 1864

Artist’s portrayal of assassination – “sic semper tyrannis” [Thus always to tyrants]

Reward poster for the conspirators – Booth trapped two weeks later in a VA barn

John Wilkes Booth 1838-1865

Lincoln’s funeral procession --Pennsylvania Avenue – a special funeral train took 2 weeks to Springfield, Ill.

[June, 1968 – “Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water”]

Executions of Lewis Paine, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Mary Surratt on July 7, 1865 – 8 were found guilt by a military tribunal,

some went to prison

Andrew Johnson 1808-1875 – pardoned 13,000 former Confederates, impeached but found not guilty by one vote

Former slave pens in Alexandra, VA

Freedmen at Richmond, VA April 1865

1872 – African Americans in Congress [l to r] Sen Hiram Revels, Miss; Rep Benjamin Turner, AL; Rep Robert DeLarge, SC; Josiah Walls, FLA;

Joseph Rainey, SC; Robert Brown Elliott, SC

Sen. Blanche Kelso Bruce, Mississippi elected in 1874, Oberlin graduate

Sen. Hiram Revels, US Senate from Mississippi in 1870

Primary school in Vicksburg – Freedmen’s Bureau established March 3, 1865

Howard University law school, 1900 – Howard was established in Washington, D.C. in 1867 named after Oliver O. Howard, director of

the Freedman’s Bureau

Ku Klux Klan members, 1866 Tennessee

“Reconstruction of the South” -- Fed. generals leading towards peace

Thomas Nast cartoon – Columbia is replacing the seceded states in the Union “Let us have peace”

Thomas Nast cartoon shows freedmen as victims of Democratic Party

Thomas Nast cartoon “Solid South”

1876 voting cartoon

Edwin M. Stanton 1814-1869 - Lincoln’s Sec. of War, fired by Johnson - 1868

Impeachment Com. of House [l to r] Benjamin Butler, James Wilson, Thaddeus Stevens, George Boutwell, Thomas Williams, John Logan,

John Bingham

1868 Republican Convention in Chicago nominates Grant

Cartoon about carpetbagging

Frederick Douglass 1817-1895

1873 election of Georgia Democrat John Brown Gordon 1832-1904 to Senate was “Redemption” because he had been officer with Lee

Henry Clay Warmoth, 1842-1932 -- Carpetbagger governor of LA 1868 - 1872

Horace Greeley 1811-1872 – founded NY Tribune in 1841, ran against Grant in 1872 as a Liberal Republican and Democrat

Rutherford B. Hayes 1822-1893 – Ohio governor who became Republican president in contested election of 1876

Samuel J. Tilden 1814-1886 -- denied presidency when several southern Democrats in Congress failed to support him in return for an

end to Reconstruction

Painting of Electoral Commission of 1877 [Florida case]

Mississippi: Freedman School, 1866

Noon at the primary school for Freedman at Vicksburg, Mississippi. (colored engraving, 1866).

Graves of rebel soldiers

This engraving shows Southerners decorating the graves of rebel soldiers at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery in Virginia, in 1867. Northerners and Southerners alike honored their war dead. But in the South, the practice of commemorating fallen soldiers became an important element in maintaining the myth of the Lost Cause that colored white Southerners’ view of the war. The Granger Collection, New York

Hampton Institute

Milk sampling at Hampton Institute. Hampton, which opened in Virginia in 1868, was one of the first of several schools established with the help of Northern philanthropic and missionary societies to allow freedmen to pursue a college education. Hampton stressed agricultural and vocational training. The military uniforms were typical for male students, black and white, at agricultural and mechanical schools. Courtesy of Hampton University Archives

First African Baptist Church in Richmond, 1874

The black church was the center of African American life in the postwar urban South. Most black churches formed after the Civil War, but some, such as the first African Baptist Church in Richmond, shown here in an 1874 engraving, traced their origins to before 1861. The Granger Collection, New York

Casting a ballot

Black voters in Richmond vote on a state constitutional conventions in 1867. A key objective of Congressional Reconstruction was to secure the voting rights of freedman. The Granger Collection, New York

Klan violence

The Klan directed violence at African Americans primarily for political activity. Here, a black man, John Campbell, vainly begs for mercy in Moore County, North Carolina, in August 1871. The Granger Collection, New York

The Union As it Was

As this Thomas Nast cartoon makes clear, the paramilitary violence against black Southerners in the early 1870s threatened, not only the voting rights of freedmen, but their dreams of education, prosperity, and family life as well. In this context, the slogan, “The Union As It Was” is highly ironic. Courtesy of Library of Congress

Massacre At New Orleans

In the New Orleans riot of 1866, thirty-seven African Americans and three white sympathizers were killed after a Radical Republican meeting. Southern whites, having lost the Civil War, had little interest in cooperating in a bi-racial Reconstruction.

"The Shackle Broken"

This lithograph from 1874 celebrates the various effects of freedom for the former slaves. In the middle panel is Hon. Robert B. Elliot of South Carolina who served as a member of the House of Representatives and is shown orating on the Civil Rights Bill in the House chamber in 1874.