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Civil War Reconstruction Notes: Minutes 1-5 Minutes 6-10 Minutes 11-15 Minutes 16-20 Southerners Heard Rumors of Rebel Victories, Anything to Keep Hope Up

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Civil War Reconstruction Notes: Minutes 1-5 Minutes 6-10 Minutes 11-15 Minutes 16-20 Southerners Heard Rumors of Rebel Victories, Anything to Keep Hope Up Name_______________________Hr._____ Civil War Reconstruction Notes: Minutes 1-5 Minutes 6-10 Minutes 11-15 Minutes 16-20 Southerners heard rumors of rebel victories, anything to keep hope up. With surrender, honor, glory, manhood, independence all gone. Slaves are the only ones they know that are conquered. Lincoln suggested in speech that some blacks may get right to vote. Booth heard this and was infuriated. Minutes 21-25 What rights will former slaves have? Who will rule in the South? What happens to people from the South? Execution? What will new president bring? Johnson was enemy of big planters. Said traitors needed to be punished, but wanted to keep blacks subordinate. Johnson scorned Frederick Douglass. What was to become of lands under Sherman’s field Order 15? Opportunity to create an independent black community existed. Minutes 26-30 An immediate calling for seed, plows. Crops were in the ground right off the bat. Blueprint for a government with Campbell as President at St Catherines Island. Twitchell gets job with Freedman’s Bureau. Minutes 31-35 Twitchell and a few black soldiers head up from New Orleans on a riverboat. In Sparta, LA he sets up an office for the Freedman’s bureau. This is an extremely unfriendly to blacks area. Planters resented this intrusion. Johnson took 48 days (May) after taking office to announce his plan for Presidential Reconstruction. – Rampant – lenient – blanket pardons hurry up the process. Northerners were surprised. South just had to admit they lost. Planters had to write Johnson personally to beg for clemency. Minutes 36-40 Johnson wanted to look out for poor whites in the South. No role for blacks in the South other than to go back to doing basically what they had been doing before. Radical Republicans resisted this. They wanted a longer Reconstruction period. Thaddeus Stevens wanted black rights and more. This stance divided the Republican party. Johnsons plan couldn’t be challenged until Congress met that fall. Minutes 41-45 St Catherine’s Island was flourishing. Lived in former slave houses. Wanted schools. After war, educated former slaves began opening schools across the south. Minutes 46-50 Male population of South is decimated and scarred. Want to make it clear that they are the boss of the blacks. Johnson is concerned about blacks’ independent attitudes as well. Minutes 51-55 Minutes 56-1:00 Minutes 1:01-1:05 Minutes 1:06-1:10 Minutes 1:11-1:15 Minutes 1:16-1:20 The former southern states are to be divided into 5 military districts, each led by a general. Black men would be given the right to vote. The freedmen Part 2 Minutes 6-10 The South is under military rule 2 years after the end of the Civil War. Black men come armed with sticks and stones to cast their ballots to vote. Tunis Campbell (former black leader on St. Catherine’s Island) runs for state congress in Georgia. Having the right to vote for blacks was like a spiritual experience. Many whites boycotted the elections…. – injustice – farce were uttered. White southerners were in fear. Some issued threats that blacks will never govern whites. Minutes 11-15 Families such as the Butlers had their land confiscated in the South. Their plantations were decimated. Federal orders gave them their land back. Freedmen were reluctant to give the land back. Deals were made between the landowners and the freedmen. Sharecropping came into effect (Freedmen grew crops for both themselves and the landowners.) Minutes 16-20 New Orleans in a shamble. Louisiana had Marshall Twitchell (former union soldier) running for political office. Twitchell supported position in constitution that former white rebels lost voting rights. Controversial. Carpetbagger…. Northern opportunists in the mind of the southerner. Minutes 21-25 1868- Tunis Campbell enters office. Southern Democrats are outraged. Blacks outnumbered 4-1 in Georgia legislature. White Republicans in congress in GA that supported the black leaders were tagged as being traitors to the white race. Campbell was not welcome in the chamber by most whites. 2 months after entering GA congress, the black were expelled by the whites. Minutes 26-30 Campbell went to Washington to appeal. Election of 1868. Ulysses S. Grant – war hero & presidential candidate. Viewed differently in the North and South. After Grant was elected, Campbell and the others that had been expelled from GA congress took back their seats. Blacks in the south are asking for “American things.” Representation on juries, schools, and more. Minutes 31-35 Taxes were increased on landowners in the South. Blacks were having more positive experiences with the government. Blacks were working for the gov’t. This felt “wrong” for many whites. White Liners, Ku Klux Klan (KKK) – secret societies that were against black power. Violence became a way of striking fear into blacks. They hid behind hoods but were often identifiable by their voices. Members included many influential whites. Minutes 36-40 Minutes 41-45 Minutes 46-50 Tunis Campbell told freedmen that they didn’t have to yield to whites anymore. Campbell was to famous to kill. Minutes 51-55 Campbell was arrested repeatedly to keep him out of congress. Every time he was arrested, blacks came out in masses to show support. Accusations of corruption in South Carolina with missing money caused resentment of the only black –controlled legislature, even though it was just as common in white-controlled legislatures. Minutes 56-1:00 Early 1870’s - Democrats began to take back control of power from the Republicans (black supporters). They did this by intimidation to keep blacks from voting. Twitchell’s group in Louisiana were targeted by whites and got run out of town. They headed to Texas. Coushatta Massacre Minutes 1:01-1:05 Twitchell heard of the news that this entire group was killed by southern whites. President Grant sent troops to New Orleans to reinstate Republican government. Twitchell went back to resume power. 25 people are arrested in connection to the massacre but are never brought to trial due to lack of evidence. The presence of troops back in the south backfired. People felt Grant overstepped his authority. Minutes 1:06-1:10 The North was losing interest in what was happening in the South. There were financial problems there that were occupying their concerns. Minutes 1:11-1:15 1876 – Marshall Twitchell is informed that a long standing issue is about to be decided. The following day, he is shot in broad daylight by a man in disguise. His brother in law is shot in the head. Twitchell is shot, left for dead in the water, but survives. Both arms end up getting amputated. Blacks were in sorrow, whites in Louisiana celebrated. Minutes 1:16-1:20 Reconstruction was officially over in 1877 with a secret compromise that gave Republicans the Whitehouse but the South to the Whites. Federal troops let New Orleans that same year. Blacks across the South were left in danger and feeling betrayed. Marshall Twitchell moved back to Vermont. Tunis Campbell was put in a convict labor camp then eventually fled to Boston. Minutes 1:20-1:25 Veterans of Gettysburg 50 years later from both sides showed unity. No black veterans were in attendance. By 1913 many of the rights that blacks had won were taken away. Some accomplishments such as communities, schools and churches survived as did their dreams. 6-8 paragraph essay Size 12 Times New Roman. Save file as ‘first initial last name Reconstruction’ in the Reconstruction Essay folder in the shared drive in your class. What challenges did we face in the aftermath of the Civil War? What attempts were made to meet these challenges? Identify both successes and failures of Reconstruction. (Conclusion) Was Reconstruction ultimately a success or failure? Why? (Restate specifics that support your argument.) .
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