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Civil War and Reconstruction
Page history
last edited
by Robert W. Maloy 4 months ago
AP U.S. Period 5: 1844-1877
Key Concept 5.3 — The Union victory in the Civil War and the contested reconstruction of the South settled the issues of slavery and secession, but left unresolved many questions about the power of the federal government and citizenship rights.
Bayonet Charge by Winslow Homer, Harper's Weekly, May 17, 1862
Here is a timeline explaining the events of the Civil War starting at the election of Abraham Lincoln to the passing of the 13th Amendment.
Video Resources
Crash Course Civil War Part I
Crash Course Civil War Part II
Crash Course Reconstruction
Cross-Links to:
Teaching and Learning Resources
Khan Academy Link: Has a video for nearly every major event of the civil war and reconstruction
The Civil War in Art from the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago.
Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863
For an educational video explaining Reconstruction, click here.
Click here for games and activities that can be used in a lesson plan
Influential Literature page for the young adult novel Bull Run by Paul Fleischman
Storming Fort Wagner. Print published in 1890
The Civil War Today app features day-by-day documents and resources for each year of the Civil War.
A Census-Based Count of the Civil War Dead contends that the death toll has been under-estimated by historians;
- David Hacker puts the figure at 750,000 who died.
The Civil War provides data visualization resources for exploring battles and casualties chronologically, geographically and numerically.
Born In Slavery: Narratives of former slaves from the Federal Writers Project
John Lawson, awarded Medal of Honor, Battle of Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864.
War Department General Order 143 (1863) authorized the formation of all-Black regiments.
- By the end of the war, there were 179,000 Black soldiers (10 percent of the Union army) and Black sailors.
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Robert Smalls, 1862 |
The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
During the Civil War, Cathay Williamson worked as a cook and laundress for the Union Troops.
After the Civil War she became the first African American woman to serve in the US Army.
Link to Clara Barton Influential Biography page
Clara Barton: A nurse during the civil war; known as "The Angel of The Battlefield"
Hispanics in the Civil War from the National Park Service.
National Archives: From Slave Women to Free Women For more information about Women Slaves
Life of a women during the Civil War
President Obama viewing the Emancipation Proclamation
Documents from Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867 from the Freedman and Southern Society Project
Reconstruction
- The Civil War was on of the most momentous occasions in US History.
- It ended with a Northern Victory and the United States held intact.
- That was just the end of one chapter and the beginning of another: Reconstruction.
- It lasted from 1865-1877.
- The beginning was simply reintroducing the Southern States back into the Union, and it was one of the most controversial in American History.
- There was also the necessary steps of integrating nearly 4 million freed slaves into society.
The national debate over Reconstruction centered on three main issues
1.What were the terms under which the defeated Confederate states should be allowed to reenter the Union? What demands should be made upon them before they reentered? Should Congress or the president establish the terms?
President Abraham Lincoln wanted four things from the Southern states to be readmitted into the Union:
- Free the slaves
- Disband Confederate governments
- Form new state governments, as long as 10% of the voters supported the Union
- No former leaders of the Confederate or any high ranking officials were to be part of the new governments
Many Northerners thought that Lincoln's plan was not harsh enough on the Southerners. They wanted to see more punishment. Congress wanted the Southerners to take pledges of loyalty to the Union before being readmitted.President Andrew Johnson also had a plan for the Southern States:- Pardon every Southern white male, not including Confederate leaders and their rich supporters
- Each state would hold a convention to form their new government
- The new state governments had to abolish slavery and pledge loyalty
Thaddeus Stevens, between 1860 & 1875 The Congressional Elections of 1866
These elections brought Radical Republicans to power. This was a group of people who felt very strongly that the South needed to pay for the war. They also wanted to prevent the Confederate leaders from being in power.The Radical Republicans passed the Military Reconstruction Acts of 1867. This divided the South into 5 districts. It also gave blacks the right to vote, hold political office, and become officials, such as police officers and judges, positions that previously were held by Southern Democrats. Johnson attempted to veto these Acts, but was overrode by the Congress. The Radical Republicans attempted to impeach Johnson in 1868, but failed by a single vote.Many Southern whites were appalled by these Acts. As a result, the Ku Klux Klan was formed. The KKK sought to prevent blacks who were attempting to vote and exercise their rights to office. The KKK commonly lynched, beat, and killed black citizens and their supporters.Click here to read the Military Reconstruction Acts of 1867.3. To what degree should the national government assist the newly freed slaves (often referred to as freedmen) in participating in the political and social life of the South?
For more information on scalawags and carpetbaggers who were people that lived in the South that wanted Black Rights to be recognized and people who lived in the North who wanted to go down to the South to help with Black Rights, link here. The Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws
After the end of the Civil War, the white southerners passed a series of laws that were supposed to restrict African Americans and their activities.
- Many of these laws were to keep the blacks available to use as a labor force now that slavery had ended.
- The Black Codes prevented any African American from voting, testifying against whites, serve on juries, and getting a job without recommendations from previous employers.
Voting Rights
During the Reconstruction Era, there were multiple groups throughout the South that wanted to prevent African Americans from casting their votes. This included local vigilante groups, and the local and state governments. They did this by establishing:
- Literacy tests
- Theses were tests that people needed to take that people needed to pass in order to vote. Often times these questions that were impossible to answer. This would often prevent African Americans from being able to vote.
- Poll Taxes
- Most times in the South, African Americans were unable to get jobs and therefore unable to make money. When there was a poll tax established, they could not afford it and not able to vote.
- Click here for a interactive experience replicating the process of African Americans trying to vote.
- For more information on the fight for voting rights, click here.
Freedman Bureau Political Cartoon, 1868The Freedmen's Bureau
This was created to help assist the freed slaves in 1865. It was given "the supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen, under such rules and regulations as may be presented by the head of the Bureau and approved by the President."
- It was controlled by the War Department. They were in charge of opening schools, creating a work force, finding employment, settling disputes, and enforcing contracts between white land owners and their black labor force.
- The Bureau lacked the military support to enforce its work.
- It was renewed by Congress in 1866, but President Johnson vetoed it because he believed it was unconstitutional for the federal government to help secure black rights.
The Bureau ultimately failed to achieve long term success and peace between the African Americans and whites in the South. However, it was able to open a number of schools for the newly freed slaves, including Howard University and Hampton Institute.
The Compromise of 1877
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Election of 1876 |
The Southern states of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were crucial to deciding the election of 1876.
- Those three states still had Republican governments from Reconstruction. A bipartisan congressional committee debated over the election in 1877.
- While this was happening, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes and his allies met with Southern Democrats.
- During their meeting, they came to an agreement: the Democrats would not block the election of Hayes in exchange for the removal of federal troops from the South.
- This gave the Democrats control over the South. Hayes was elected and the troops were removed. This marks the end of Reconstruction.
Moderate v. 'Radical' Plans for Reintegrating the SouthThe Legacy of Slavery after the Civil War
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Physical and economic destruction
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The increased role of the federal government
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The greatest loss of life on a per capita basis of any US war before or since.
The two most major effects of the Civil War (1861-1865) were:
Jim Crow Laws in the 1940s
Slavery was officially over in the United States with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, freeing slaves in areas of rebellion, and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ending slavery for the whole nation (except those convicted of crimes) in 1865.
Still, its legacy continues. Here is a short list of examples of slavery’s legacy in the U.S.:
- ongoing second-class status of African Americans in the U.S., leading in part to a back-to-Africa movement in the 1920s and the founding of Liberia, in West Africa
- segregation in the South codified in the ‘Jim Crow’ laws
- a segregated military until the 1950s
- prevention of full voting rights for African Americans until mid-1960s
- underrepresentation in elected offices; for example: in the 140 years since Reconstruction, only three African-Americans have been state governors; the third is N.Y. Governor David Patterson, who took office after the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer in March 2008 (the first was L. Douglas Wilder, Governor of Virginia 1990-1994 , the second is Deval Patrick, elected as Governor of Massachusetts in 2006).
This list could go on much longer; however, it is also important to note the achievements of many African-Americans despite great obstacles and impediments, including advances in politics, science, education, social services, and the arts, by individuals such as Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Harriet Tubman, Sonia Sanchez, Leontyne Price, Condoleeza Rice, Shirley Chisholm, Oprah Winfrey, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith Joyner, Clara McBride "Mother" Hale, Sojourner Truth, Zora Neale Hurston, Bessie Smith, Ida B. Wells, Ella Fitzgerald, and hundreds of others.Click here and here to watch videos about the effects of the American Civil War and here for a short presentation.Other effects of the Civil War also include these developments:
- policies of Reconstruction;
- continued resentment in the South towards the North;
- mantra ‘states rights’; although started with the anti-federalists during the ratification debates of the U.S. Constitution, southern states took up the cause as the main reason for secession, and after the war, as the region’s main complaint against the national government: that states should have more autonomy;
- electoral voting patterns that show the South often (but not always) voting as a bloc and shifting results of presidential elections through the latter half of the 19th and entire 20th centuries (see map and discussion below);
- the assassination of President Lincoln.
Click here for lesson plans and other online resources for teaching the Reconstruction Era. Which of the following statements best describes a major consequence of the withdrawal federal troops from the South in 1877?a) It enabled Southern landowners to restore the plantation system of the antebellum period.b) It initiated a prolonged struggle for power between the Democratic and Republican parties across the South.c) It undermined northern-financed initiatives to restore the southern economy.d) It largely nullified efforts to enforce the civil and political rights of free blacks and emancipated slaves in the South.CORRECT ANSWER: DInformation, primary sources, and a teacher's guide on Reconstruction from pbs.org.Click here to read about the reconstruction after the Civil War. Sources:1. Reconstruction. Retrieved 11 May 2013. Available at http://www.ushistory.org/us/35.asp.2. Reconstruction, Projects for Students, by Students. Retrieved 11 May 2013. Available at http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/reconstruction.htm.3. Black Codes and Pig Laws. Retrieved 11 May 2013. Available at http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/black-codes/4. Black Codes. Retrieved 11 May 2013. Available at http://www.history.com/topics/black-codes.5. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Retrieved 11 May 2013. Available at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_freed.html.6. Compromise of 1877. Retrieved 11 May 2013. Available at http://www.history.com/topics/compromise-of-1877.
Civil War and Reconstruction
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