"The Footsteps of Illustrious Men"- USA GC AAR

Clarkian Reconstruction
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Daniel Clark now set about the long task of reconstruction. The Clark plan, as it would come to be called, involved a two front assault on Reconstruction. The first was the “Radical” phase of reconstruction. This consisted of a Constitutional end to Slavery, and a Constitutional justification for the actions of the Union prior to the war. This phase also saw the destruction of all aspects of Confederate Nationalism. The objective was to end the Confederacy as an idea, not just a physical government. Clark staid clear of such extreme measures as the Wade-Davis “Ironclad Oath”, and instead focused on a slow crush of the Confederate identity.

Clark’s first step was the appointment of a military governorship over the South. Albert Sydney Johnston, by way of his popularity, was forced upon Clark as his first choice. Clark was overjoyed when Johnston declined and left home for his family. Johnston was now well into his 60’s and was unable to take the wear and tear of political life. Many Democrats had hoped to use him to regain the White House, but his health kept him away. He would die in 1875 at the age of 72. Instead Philip Sheridan was given the governor position. Sheridan was young and popular with many in the military. He made his office in Richmond, and got to work immediately.


Philip H. Sheridan

Sheridan organized 5 districts for his subordinates. Sheridan took the 1st District, Virginia, for himself. General Grant was given the 2nd District, the Carolinas . General John Pope was given command of the 3rd District, Florida and Georgia.. General Hancock was tasked with the 4th in Tennessee and Alabama, while Alfred Pleasonton was tasked with the 5th in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. Sheridan gave them room to govern as they saw fit, but did keep a close watch. Specifically in suffrage. When the US Congress passed the 13th and 14th Amendments, Sheridan was quick to enforce them. In fact he went so far as to remove the suffrage rights of many whites and deny them the rights of citizens. He also personally oversaw the destruction of Confederate symbols. All the Confederate flags were burnt, the Tredgar Iron Works was torn down, and the Confederate Capital was destroyed.

Sheridan’s firm hand was tempered by the second phase of Reconstruction, namely the “Olive-Branch” phase. Clark wanted the nation to move on, and saw peaceful re-entry into the Union as the best way to do it. He started in Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. Military command was soon replaced by appointed civilian command. Republican Governors were appointed in Louisiana and Arkansas, while a New York Democrat was appointed in Tennessee. Florida followed soon after. With each governor appointed, the state was readmitted to the Union. The requirements were that all white men had to sign an oath of fealty to the US government, and the state had to pass certain laws pertaining to fire arm control and black rights. They also had to ratify the new Amendments to the US Constitution.


The Confederate White House

Southerners tried to fight back. Most sough to re-assert Democratic control, especially in Arkansas and Florida. But the large number of blacks voting led to Republican sweeps. Soon Mississippi, Alabama and Virginia followed, and Republicans were in control across the country. There was, however, a small group of Southerners who plotted violence. The number grew with each Republican, or “Carpet-Bagger” who came South. This period saw the formation of three pro-South organizations. The “League of the South” was a political party founded by a group of ex-Confederate Officers, for a short time endorsed by Robert E. Lee. The LoS’s stated goal was to ensure a safe and secure return to the Union. Overtime however it developed into a radical and violent political party bent on bringing the Union Government into Southern hands. Another organization that arose was the Confederate Christian Army, a para-military organization charged with “defending Christian Values” in the South. It was chaired by Thomas Jackson until his death in 1900. The last organization to emerge was the Klu Klux Klan.

While the League of the South and the CCA (renamed the Southern Christian Army after 1873) were publicly peaceful and privately violent, the KKK made no distinction. They wanted to wreck the Union’s attempt at reconstruction, through violence. Lynch mobs and mass shootings occurred across the South. Confederate soldiers, supported and supplied by Plantation owners, went on rampages. After the shooting of 20 blacks at a voting office in Richmond, Sheridan struck back. He had known for some time that the many leading Southerners were behind the attacks. However his hands were tied by the power these men held. After the Richmond Massacre, he ended any pretext of peace. In a single night he arrested 20 leading Virginia and Carolina plantation owners. 10 were put to death for murder, the others given various jail times. Their leader, Robert Ransom, was the last to be caught. When a large group of Klansmen tried to free him from prison, Sheridan closed the trap. In the ensuing gunfight, the KKK was destroyed. It lost its money and its leadership, and slowly dissipated into the other pro-South groups.


The Flag of the League of the South

Despite the South’s best attempts, slavery was dead. Although the North tried to help integrate the blacks into Southern Society they could not bring about instant social change. Most Blacks went from being slaves to being surfs. They were tied to the land because they could not afford to leave. There was nothing for blacks outside the farms they lived in. Although the 1880’s saw the migration of many blacks into the North, it would be some time before blacks and whites ever reached a kind of equality. Some black schools were set up by Northern missionaries.

The greatest opportunity for many blacks was in West Virginia and in the far west. Both West Virginia and the Nebraska-Colorado area were hit hard by the war and many Whites left. Jobs and new factories were opening up, offering cheap wages to blacks who moved to work in them. The was especially true in California, which became a state in 1869. The vast fields of California crops were quickly filled with former slaves looking to make a new life. It was a black farmer who discovered the first gold, and spread the rumor of it throughout the country. The first gold rush was small, as much of the country did not want to move out west after such a costly war. But many of the disenfranchised sought to test their luck out west. California, by result, was to become a staunchly republican state, with a rapidly growing population.

RGB: Thats the plan, hopefully I can get another big influx of foriegners.

JimboIX: Thanks. Reconstruction has always been one of the periods I've had a problem getting interested in, so its been difficult writing into it.

Fulcrumvale: Me too

Alex Borhild: Aha, then I retract my potato.

Those Northern Nights
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Even while the South took a long hard look at its past, the North looked to the future. The Northern Industrial growth, now infused with a returning work force, grew in leaps and bounds. The late 1860s and early 1870s saw rapid growth in Industry, not only in New England and Ohio, but also in Missouri and the North-West. Samuel Starkweather, Mordecai Bartley and the other Ohio Industrialists had begun expanding into the rest of the Ohio Valley. Their sons took over, expanding into the North-West and Mississippi Valley. A series of small factories were opened in Wisconsin, Missouri and Texas. Thomas Ewing, who had been primarily responsible for encouraging factory development in the region, was regarded by the new industrialists as a sort of Godfather of Industry.

Ewing’s vision of a politically sponsored (but not supported) industrial base developed further in the 1860’s and 1870’s. In 1869 Carl Schurz, a German reformer and staunch Unionist, was elected to the Senate from Missouri. While in the Senate Schurtz, who had long represented German-Americans, continued Ewing’s programs. He encouraged industrial growth, based upon merit, especially in those areas of heavy immigration. Soon German speakers were flooding into the US by the thousands, many ending up in Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois. There, factories bloomed. Rich men, through government protection, opened factories and brought in workers. The region was booming.


Carl Schurz, Senator from Missouri.

Meanwhile many Northern industrialists looked with greedy eyes to the South, where cheap labor had just been freed. After President Clark opened the door for Northern investment in the South (thinking it would help re-start the Southern economy), Industrialists moved south. The first major factory was opened in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hundreds of former slaves from across the state flocked to the factory. Mark Hopkins, one of the leading railroad industrialists, financed the efforts of business partner Collis Potter Huntington. Huntington opened the factory with the direct goal of bringing in ex-slaves to work for poor wages. The move angered many southerners, especially poor whites who wanted positions in southern factories.

Hopkins, and his partners, began the gradual expansion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Previous moves had gone north through Victoria, but Hopkins thought a southern route was a wiser move. Andrew Carnegie, who had slowly risen from nothing to become a powerful Railroad magnet, expanded from the East into Nebraska and Colorado. With his expansion came factories and towns all across the country. No other man in the United States was more responsible for the economic growth of the West than Andrew Carnegie. He also helped ferment the “Cowboy” world of the West. With the railroad came towns and those towns were often very isolated from Eastern civilization. As such bandits, robbers and thugs moved west. The “Wild West” was born.


Collis Potter Huntington

President Clark is often credited for this period of rapid growth, but his administration only accomplished this by being ignorant of the problems that arose. Lincoln, Clark and his allies were so obsessed with Reconstruction that these “robber barons” developed unchecked. Soon a few men controlled all the major industry, and a huge amount of wealth. This period saw the birth of “Populist” politicians, and the start of the Union movement. Men who saw the destruction of worker rights and power rushed to their aid. Although the movements of Prohibition, Suffrage and Workers’ Rights started in this era, they would not become strong for ten to twenty year.

As the 60’s rolled into the 70’s and Clark’s term came to a slow, quiet end, things heated up in the South. With Sheridan’s destruction of the KKK, the other southern Nationalist groups took the offensive. The League of the South worked mostly a political angle, getting “Republicans” elected in many of the Border States. Northern Republicans referred to these new Southern Republicans as “Black Sheep” Republicans. They were Democrats posing as their successful opponents. The most famous was George Smith Houston. Houston won election in Alabama on the Republican ticket, despite his blatant democratic leanings. When the Republican governor attempted to block his election, violence erupted.

Thomas Jackson’s Confederate Christian Army rapidly rose to power throughout the Southern churches. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Southern Baptist Church were both quickly taken over by the CCA. From the pulpit the North was blasted as a place for hedonistic blasphemers. Those Southerners who aided the Carpet baggers were damned in the eyes of their peers. Many churches turned out factory workers and blacks, and any who worked with Northerners. Southern women who married Northerners were spurned and insulted. On numerous occasions Northern men were assaulted for no other reason than being from the North. In the early 1870s, the South was still a foreign nation to many North of the Mason-Dixon line.

JimboIX: Thanks. I really wanted to keep Jackson involved without him being as beloved as he normally is.

Volga: Thannk you! I think the problems will continue though

Fulcrumvale: Good, means I've got you interested.

Ayeshteni: Good description, hopefully it wont be as bad as some of the actual intifadas.

RGB: Ask and ye shal recieve, I'll go more in depth on some things in my next post.

Failure often proves a blessing.
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When Robert E. Lee died in 1871, the South was shocked. Lee had suffered a heart attack in the early '60s, and never recovered. By '71 he was too far gone to completely recover, and died at the age of 64. Lee's time after the war was spent working with the League of the South. He hoped to use the organization to ensure that Southerners were represented in the new governments that would soon be raised in the South. Lee wanted to ease the transition between war and peace, but there was too much resistance even for the South's beloved to overcome. His death signaled the start of true southern resistance. While he lived the dogs of war were kept chained, because if the great Robert E Lee said peace was the goal than the South agreed. Now, that was over.

Almost immediately after his death, a cult of Lee emerged. Lee was quoted as saying:
"You cannot be a true man until you learn to obey"
Learn to obey, it was the rallying cry of the League of the South, and the Southern Christian Army. It began appearing on posters and in newspapers, under pictures of Lee. His words and ideas were twisted by the Southern Resistance, and Lee was framed as a freedom fighter who supported armed resurrection against the North. Southerners, many now feeling disenfranchised by their new governments, took to the new ideology of service. Old Confederate generals and politicians formed underground shadow governments. The most famous of these was the government formed by Thomas Jackson and the Southern Christian Army.



Jackson was "elected" President of the at the first general meeting of the SCA. Confederate senator George Davis of North Carolina was chosen as his vice President. James Winright Flanagan was named "Secretary" nominally serving as secretary of state. These men ran the SCA, and soon took over the League of the South. Only men who they wanted saw promotion within the resistance. These three men, though different in their ideology, became devoted to the Southern nation. Flanagan was a strong pro-slave politician, while Davis had never been the greatest proponent of secession. Above them both was the devoutly Southern Jackson. Jackson was still a young man, only 37 in 1871. He used his youth to inspire, from the podium, and the pulpit. Churches regularly invited him to speak, and he was a regular at parties, meetings and dinners. To have Jackson appear was to have a hero in your home.

Jackson and his allies knew that publicly they could never have the power they wanted. But there were other ways to take control. Joseph E. Brown, a staunch state-rightist, was asked to head up a new initiative on public schools. Brown, heavily influenced by Jackson, designed a very pro-Southern education. Children would grow up learning that the South had led a brilliant but ill-fated rebellion against the evils of Northern anti-constitutionalism. Jackson, meanwhile, helped turn the churches of the South to turn the war into a Crusade. Every day more and more Southern men came home to find their homes damaged, their families broken and the South still in resistance. Hundreds of thousands of men now had a new war to fight.


Hiram Revels

The new Southern Resistance, inspired by the cult of Lee, had three enemies. The first enemy was the North. The North represented, to the jaded view of the Southerners, all the evils of man. The second enemy was the traitor. These were the politicians in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Texas and West Virginia who had not sided with the Confederates. These men, it was reasoned, had lost the war, not the brave soldiers and generals who fought and died. The final enemy was the most insidious and close to home. The third enemy was the black man. Unlike the other enemies, this one was at home. He was around the corner, down the street and in the towns. When the KKK was destroyed, so too ended organized violence against African-Americans. But the active resistance to equality did not go away.

Men like Hiram Revels, who was elected to the United States Senate, represented all the problems the South faced. The SCA preached that the black man was the devil, a snake like figure who corrupted the true and honest white men. Likewise Revels was a nothing who was raised to become an equal to the white politicians. The world was turned upside down for these white men, and those who were once slaves were now in power. This resentment led to the "Jim Crow" South of the post-war years. Blacks were forced, by law, out of government. Most were denied the very right to vote as the election of 1872 approached. Former slave schools were closed and blacks were denied education across the board. Only Northern missionary schools remained open to educate former slaves. Many of those Northerners were eventually driven out by the pressure of the Southern Resistance. A "passive war" was unleashed upon the carpet baggers. They were never confronted, but for them prices were higher, deliveries were slower and help was just a moment behind. In anyway they could, the Southern Resistance hoped to defeat the new United States. Much was in stake in the election of 1872.