Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

The election was held on October 12, the vote polled being the smallest ever given in the history of the State. In the first eight Congressional districts, however, it exceeded 40,000. The constitutional amendment met with very little opposition, many counties voting unanimously to remove the restriction upon the suffrage.[^[456]] The Assembly then chosen convened at Richmond on December 4, 1865, the time fixed for the meeting of Congress.

While it is true that there were grounds for apprehension regarding the stability of the new governments instituted in these four States, the principal cause of anxiety to the Administration was the disorganized political and social condition of the remaining members of the late Confederacy. It was universally agreed that with the destruction of its military power the authority of that government was completely extinguished. From that moment until the revival within them of Federal laws these commonwealths were destitute of all legislation of a general character. Under our dual principle of government, however, this could be endured temporarily. But the absence of a central organism would soon be evident in the reappearance of those alarming symptoms which marked American political and industrial life in the critical period between the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, and the inauguration, nearly six years later, of the present national system. In that unhappy interval, however, the authority of the various States was ample for the regulation of domestic affairs, while in the deranged and confused times succeeding the Rebellion seven entire commonwealths were left without any general or any particular government. Their territory, indeed, had passed under control of the Union forces, for when the Administration of Jefferson Davis was overthrown the disloyal State establishments, of which it was only an emanation, fell likewise. Though internal progress was not seriously to be expected in this situation, tolerable order was preserved by Federal soldiers, who occupied the entire region between the Potomac and the Rio Grande, for even in those States reorganized under Executive auspices civil authority was not yet established on a foundation sufficiently secure to maintain itself without assistance from the military power of the nation.

Besides the absence of all civil government there were other elements of discord that tended to increase the confusion in these States. Their population, it need scarcely be observed, was not homogeneous. The decree of emancipation together with the incidents of war had brought freedom to almost the entire slave population of the South. This was soon to be confirmed by the proposed constitutional amendment, which was designed both to place beyond question the status of freedmen and to strike the shackles from the limbs of the last bondman in the loyal as well as in the disloyal States. About the middle of December nearly 4,000,000 negroes bereft of the hand that bestowed their daily sustenance found themselves suddenly dependent for support upon their own exertions. The General Government, it is true, by creating the Bureau of Freedmen and Refugees, diminished considerably the danger from this source, though this relief by no means solved the problem of transforming the recent slave into a useful member of society; besides, the bureau itself subsequently degenerated into a fruitful source of abuse.

Nor were Southern whites by any means unanimous as to the best policy to adopt in the circumstances in which an unsuccessful rebellion had placed them. Between Union men and secessionists there existed a feeling of extreme bitterness. Even among members of the latter class there was considerable difference of opinion, as in North Carolina, where the former Whigs, by the moderation of their views as much as by constantly agitating the question of reconstruction, had somewhat embarrassed the Richmond authorities while war was still flagrant. Add to these causes of disorder the discontent of thousands of disbanded soldiers who returned in the gloom of defeat not infrequently to ruined homes and wasted fields. Then, too, there was the disappointment and humiliation naturally felt by a brave and impulsive people who had fought gallantly in support of a cause condemned, indeed, by the civilized world, but believed by them to be not only just but indispensable to their prosperity and happiness.

Though a volume could be profitably employed in describing, town by town and county by county, the extent of destruction inflicted on the South, a few brief paragraphs must suffice to suggest an imperfect idea of the enormous loss of wealth sustained by that section. The wreck of four members of the Confederacy has been noticed in the preceding pages. That rapid sketch, however, took no account of the damage to individuals by the liberation of their slaves, for, except in those instances where negroes left the commonwealth, that was not in any sense a loss to the State. If it were, a community, by reducing to servitude a part of its inhabitants, could at any time increase the amount of its capital. It is only from the slaveholder’s point of view, therefore, that emancipation can be regarded as a pecuniary loss. Immense damage was sustained by both North and South in the withdrawal of millions of men from the various fields of production. The energy of these multitudes, which was rapidly making the United States the most opulent and powerful nation on the globe, had exerted itself for four years in the destruction of former accumulations.

Almost at the moment that the star of the Confederacy had begun to decline the imperial State of Georgia, hitherto exempt from punishment, was wasted by fire and sword. Sometimes the Southern, sometimes the Northern army stripped the country of everything capable of supporting life. Crops had been harvested, indeed, but this served only to facilitate their destruction. In the retreat of Johnston and the advance of Sherman toward Atlanta highways had been injured, bridges burned and many lines of railroad completely destroyed. Dwellings, when they interfered with military operations, were levelled by even the Confederate army, and the Union forces could not be expected to show greater consideration for the property of public enemies. General Hood not only wasted the vast stores accumulated in Atlanta but burned habitations when they stood in the way of his fortifications. Though winter was rapidly approaching, the Federal commander deemed it necessary after the capture of that stronghold to expel from their abodes a considerable part of its population. A brief truce, it is true, enabled the miserable inhabitants to remove a part of their effects farther south; thousands, outcasts from their ruined homes, were thus driven to wander among strangers whose bounty had already been taxed by earlier fugitives; both classes were dependent for their maintenance on the precarious charity of an impoverished people. Crowded dwellings forced great numbers in the inclement weather to seek shelter in the neighboring forests, where they found a safe refuge, indeed, but a scanty subsistence. Over the region traversed by Sherman and Johnston the forces of Hood soon after traced a devastating march northward to Dalton. The mischiefs of the great march to Savannah have frequently been described. Its beginning was announced by the blaze of burning buildings, and when the last of the Federal soldiers had set their faces toward the sea the city of Atlanta was little more than a mass of smoking ruins. Though the region traversed was probably the richest in the State, extensive misery accompanied the progress of the army. The meat and the vegetables needed for his command were taken by the Union General. Horses, mules and wagons were freely appropriated; slaves also were assisted to escape from their masters. Mills and cotton-gins were frequently devoted to the flames. In Milledgeville factories, storehouses and public buildings were destroyed. The principal edifices of Macon perished about the same time. Indeed, Augusta was the only considerable place in the State that escaped serious harm. The people in northwestern Georgia were in the utmost destitution, large families being frequently for whole days without food; venerable persons of both sexes, sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, often walked fifteen and even twenty miles to procure food enough to prevent starvation. The injury to all the usual means of transportation greatly increased the difficulty of bringing relief. When the conflict had ended, however, Federal officers did what they could to alleviate the almost universal distress, and their magnanimity was not without influence on the future conduct of many an ex-Confederate veteran.

South Carolina, the fatal State that woke the sword of war, did not suffer greatly in the earlier stages of the conflict, though even then her foreign commerce was extinguished and her agriculture interrupted along the coast. Before its close, however, she was destined to experience most of its horrors. A restless generation of agitators had assiduously inculcated the notion that the South was ruthlessly oppressed by Yankee avarice. This teaching bore fruit, and the people of South Carolina, coming to regard themselves as little better than tributary slaves, were easily persuaded to resort to the wager of battle. With the progress of the contest this proud State was growing weaker within, hostile pressure was constantly increasing from without. Time at length and the fortunes of war had brought round their revenge, and when the veterans of Sherman turned northward from Savannah the Palmetto State was powerless to prevent, or seriously to retard, their advance. Transportation was greatly embarrassed by the destruction of the bridges as well as the tracks of almost every important railway within the State. Immense quantities of cotton and numbers of cotton warehouses, uncounted dwellings and depots, machine shops and foundries, as well as several sailing vessels and steamboats were consumed by flames. Besides these blackened memorial’s of disaster and defeat, the stately cities of Charleston and Columbia were almost simultaneously laid in ruins by great conflagrations. The inability of the civil authorities to furnish food for his army constrained General Sherman to forage for supplies. In this manner all the cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry, even the little stores of meal, treasured as the last barrier against want, were consumed, and the people left entirely without subsistence. To prevent general starvation the Confederate commander was compelled to distribute the rations of his soldiers among the wretched inhabitants. From various causes many ancient and wealthy families found themselves suddenly reduced to a condition of beggary, and so low was the condition of the public treasury that the Legislature as early as the mid-summer of 1865 had already begun seriously to discuss the question of repudiation.

With some slight alterations this picture of South Carolina’s ills will serve for that of her northern and more deserving sister, so far at least as concerns those parts overrun by the contending hosts. The cessation of hostilities stopped the carnival of death and silenced the engines of destruction before half of North Carolina’s territory had been crossed. From the first years of the war there were numerous instances of privation among the loyalists of that State. Toward its close the more favored classes also began to feel the pressure of want. The negroes required and received assistance from the Freedmen’s Bureau. The whites, refugees as well as secessionists, were aided by the commanders of the rival forces.

Florida, fortunately for her people, was so remote from the principal scenes of war that she felt few of its evils. Battles, it is true, occurred within the State, but they were as skirmishes compared to the bloody engagements which took place elsewhere. The same observations are substantially true of Texas. A fringe of Mississippi’s territory, too, had been swept by the furnace-blast of war. The extensive movements around Corinth, Iuka, Vicksburg, Jackson and Port Hudson will suggest the extent of destruction that visited the northern half of that State. There existed considerable privation in that section, though no general distress as in other members of the Confederacy.

All the Gulf States, however, were not equally fortunate. Though long impending, the fate of Alabama came swiftly. Almost in the same hour she was invaded from the north and menaced from the south. A large portion of her material resources was already exhausted when the cavalry raids of General Wilson spread terror and devastation through the interior counties. The city of Selma was laid in ashes; smaller towns and villages were likewise consumed by flames; schools and colleges, private buildings and public edifices perished in the universal wreck. Monuments of ruin were everywhere conspicuous throughout a region the most productive, probably, in all the South. Silence and desolation reigned where but lately stood proud and hospitable mansions. Nor was the destruction of wealth or its elements the only injury sustained, for industry would soon repair the losses of capital. Labor itself had been severely crippled. Of the army of 122,000 soldiers which Alabama furnished to the cause of secession 35,000, it was estimated, had been left on the field of battle, and at least an equal number had been disabled for life. Mobile, enriched by the cotton trade, was silent as some ancient necropolis. Her splendid commerce was ruined; her stately ships were gone, and the wave broke unheeded on the shores of her deserted harbor.