Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War [April 9, 1865]
Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind -- it was,

many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing

 

 

Gone with the Wind: Destruction and the American Civil War

The obliteration of cities, houses, trees, and men was a shared experience in a time of the most extreme national divisiveness as Americans search for common ground as they considered the war’s costs and provoked discussion and debate.

 

 

Malice Toward None and Charity for All?  - Early Reconstruction Battles

Emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shape the political agenda of Reconstruction

despite being undermined by a defiant Southern coalition determined to protect their own privilege.

 

 

A Bit of History: The Contraband; The Recruit; The Veteran (1865–66) depicts the narrative of a fictional emancipated slave

who enrolls in the Union Army and loses his leg. It commemorates the transition of the African American from slavery to freedom

 

 

 

 

Who is in charge of Reconstruction?

All of these things are uncertain in the weeks and months after the Civil War

#1 Is Reconstruction an executive process led by the President?  Or…

 

#2 Is Reconstruction a legislative process led by Congress?  Which wing of the Republican Party would lead reconstruction – the moderates or the radicals?

 

 

What will be the fate of the conquered South?

#1 How would these states be brought back into the Union?

 

#2 Would they be considered conquered territories or equal states? 

 

#3 How would South rebuild their governments, economies, and social systems?

 

#4 What rights did freedom confer upon formerly enslaved people?

 

 

 

 

Drawing the Oath and Taking the Rations 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lincoln’s 10% Plan 1863 

Presidential Reconstruction Plan 

 

State reinstated if 10% of 1860 voters took a loyalty oath and accepted emancipation.

 

Offers full pardons to all ex-Confederates

 

Required states to provide education for African-Americans and to grant the vote to African-Americans who were already literate, owned property, or had served in the Union forces.

 

 

 

The Wade Davis Bill [July 1864]  Congressional Reconstruction Plan

 

A state could set up a Constitutional convention after
 50 % of the voters in 1860 took an Iron-clad oath pledging that they had always supported the United States.

 

Lincoln pocket vetoes the Wade-Davis Bill. He rejected it because he did not wish "to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration."

 

What is a pocket veto? an indirect veto of a legislative bill by leaving it unsigned until it is too late for it to be dealt with during the legislative session.

 

 

 

 

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America [1865]

Lincoln's dream of healing a divided nation and allowing Confederacy to reintegrate

into American society ends when one gunshot changes the country forever.

 

 

The Conspirators in the Lincoln Assassination 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Freedmen's Bureau and Early Reconstruction Policy
The Freedmen's Bureau was an extraordinary agency established by Congress in 1865, charged with the mandate to change the
southern racial "status quo" in education, civil rights, and labor, the playing a crucial role in the implementation of early Reconstruction policy.