Now that we’ve seen the artists’ view of the battle at Atlanta that led to the end of the Civil War, let’s look at Reconstruction and the myths of the Civil War that developed that we’ve probably all heard about. Maybe you even heard about some of the myths and thought they were true. First, though, what was the Reconstruction period of time all about?
Reconstruction
If you saw the movie Gone With the Wind, you probably got a glimpse of what the years right after the war looked like when the carpetbaggers from the North came to get what they could from the decimated South. But why did this time have to happen? Well, here’s my perspective.
As you know, President Lincoln was assassinated as the war was coming to a close and he was part of the Republican Party. Had he lived, I’ve read that Mr. Lincoln had a number of policies to put in place to help the freed slaves live as free men and women. However, his vice president at the time, Andrew Johnson, was a Democrat who had other ideas, and his view of Reconstruction was the result of him becoming President.
Why did a Republican president have a Democrat vice president? Here’s what AI had to say:
“Abraham Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson as his Vice President for the 1864 election primarily to balance the ticket, promote national unity, and signal a lenient approach to Reconstruction after the Civil War. By running as the “National Union” ticket rather than a strictly Republican one, Lincoln sought to appeal to War Democrats and Southern Unionists.” Sounded good at the time, but no one thought that Mr. Johnson would become president.
In 1867, Congress divided the Southern states into 5 occupied military districts to enforce the reforms. Congress also passed a series of Constitutional amendments: 13th outlawing slavery, 14th recognizing citizenship rights of the formerly enslaved, and 15th guaranteeing men the right to vote.
Reform, however, was undermined by white Southern resistance, growing Northern indifference, and prevailing racism throughout the nation.
As a result of political compromise in 1877, all remaining U.S. troops were withdrawn from the South. Since the federal government was no longer willing or able to enforce U.S. laws, reforms in the South ended. Access to voting rights and equal protection was guaranteed in theory only.
Over the next 25 years, racially discriminatory laws erased most of the political and social gains following the war. These laws, known as “Jim Crow,” effectively sanctioned white supremacy. We need to know the background of this term since it’s still being used today.
According to AI, “The origin of the term “Jim Crow” is obscure, but probably refers to slave singing that incorporated an African dance called ‘Jump Jim Crow.’ ‘Jump Jim Crow’ became a minstrel show dance performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface, first performed in 1828.”
Americans throughout the nation began to ask themselves, who actually won the Civil War?
new issues/questions that needed to be answered
The end of the war raised as many questions as it answered.
- Four million Americans were freed because of the U.S. victory, but the question was how they could live as free citizens in a nation that had enslaved them? How would they reunite with families and establish schools, churches, and businesses? How could they ensure their political and civil rights?
- People in the North questioned how to treat defeated Southerners: tried for treason, would Southern representatives be readmitted to the U.S. Congress, what would prevent another rebellion?
- White Southerners shocked by their military defeat wondered how they could regain their political power. Should Northern reforms or punishment be resisted? Many former Confederates believed that while losing the war, they could perhaps win the peace.
But after 12 years, most questions remained unanswered.
Civil War myths
Myths aren’t the same as history. They are based on incomplete facts and simple explanations. None of the ways that Americans explained the Civil War to themselves and others are completely factual.
White Southerners created the Lost Cause myth to explain their defeat by saying that Southerners won a moral victory against the North’s overwhelming numbers and resources. By the 1900s, many Northern whites accepted this myth.
Another myth, the Great Emancipator, showed President Lincoln as the savior of enslaved people.
The Reconciliation myth positioned the war as a misunderstanding fueled by sectional politics and heated rhetoric. Northern and Southern whites both spread this myth and so erased the role of slavery as the primary cause of the Civil War.
Myth #1 – The Nation was healed
This myth said the Civil War was a tragic misunderstanding. U.S. and Confederate veterans were more alike than different; both had fought honorable for their cause; past disputes should be forgotten.
Whites on both sides accepted that white supremacy was the natural order of the races. White Southern leaders were allowed to reclaim political power. African Americans were segregated and disfranchised.
Many Northern whites faced rapid economic and social changes. Some believed that the pre-war South represented a simpler, nobler past. In time,the myth of the Lost Cause became accepted as part of the Reconciliation myth. The combination of these myths erased slavery as the central cause of the Civil War.
The Reconciliation myth became the most popular narrative of the Civil War. It glossed over disturbing issues and replaced them with images of soldiers on both sides doing their patriotic duty as Americans with honor and dignity.
However, only the Union veteran (on the left) holds the U.S. flag.
Myth #2 – the Lost Cause
This myth saw The Battle of Atlanta as a tribute to Confederate bravery and sacrifice.
Instead they were forced back by a Union counterattack. Southern promoters pointed to this brief moment of Confederate success as proof that the painting depicted a “Confederate Victory.”
The author, Edward Pollard, claimed that although white Southerners lost the war, they did not lose control of their society or its racial order.
Myth #3 – the Confederate Cause was Right
The Confederate States fought to defend the rights of states to govern themselves. Slavery was a benevolent institution. The Confederacy was defeated, but it was never wrong. By accepting defeat gracefully, the Confederacy won a moral victory over tyranny.
At the end of the war, nearly 23% of the South’s white male population had died. Faced with such overwhelming defeat, white Southerners felt a deep need to justify their actions. Over the years, authors, former Confederate leaders, and women’s memorial associations led in constructing the myth of the Lost Cause.
Through textbooks, churches, art, and film, the Lost Cause grew to become the most widespread and emotionally powerful description of war in the South. This myth was used to justify “Jim Crow” segregation laws supporting white supremacy. These laws took away voting rights and basic access to schools, jobs, and public facilities for African Americans.
Central to its beliefs, the Lost Cause denies slavery as the primary cause of the Civil War. It replaces the harsh realities of white supremacy with false, sentimental images of the Old South as a land of prosperous plantations and benevolent slaveholders. It generalizes the enslaved people as passive workers who enjoyed the benefits of a paternalistic relationship.
This 1872 illustration was intended to gain sympathy from white Northern readers for the plight of African Americans in the South.
[After reading about the Lost Cause myth, I’ve realized that I’ve been influenced by it. My bad.]
Myth #4 – Lincoln Freed the Slaves
Abraham Lincoln was “The Great Emancipator.” He alone guaranteed freedom and liberty to enslaved people. African Americans took no part in their own liberation.
They sabotaged tools and machinery, they were secret informants for U.S. troops, and they acted in numerous other ways. Thousands liberated themselves by escaping. As U.S. Armies moved into the South, the number of enslaved people joining Union lines compelled U.S. authorities to act, especially after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 made freedom a goal of the United States.
Around 200,000 African Americans joined the U.S. Army or Navy. At least 3/4ths were black Southerners who escaped from slavery. Many fought in battle; some supported Union forces as teamsters, cooks, laborers, and scouts.
Slavery was not formally abolished until 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. While black Southerners tried to live according to their rights, they soon lost nearly everything they’ve been given through Southern resistance. Eventually black Southerners confronted a system that regarded them as still enslaved.
However, General Sherman did not allow black soldiers to fight in his army, but they could work as stretcher-bearers and wagon drivers, as well as other military jobs. In contrast, Confederate forces forced enslaved people to support them.
The 41st United States Congress, with Republican majorities in both chambers, met from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1871, during the first 2 years of Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency. His presidency was central to Reconstruction, passing the 15th Amendment, enforcing the Ku Klux Klan Act, and establishing the Department of Justice to ensure rights protection.
The 42nd Congress focused on Reconstruction-era issues, including civil rights legislation and the amnesty act.
Myth #5 – The Union Cause Saved Humanity
The Union cause was purely a moral crusade to save liberty and democracy. As victors, U.S. veterans forever preserved “the last best hope of Earth” for all people of the United States. Victory, in fact, proved that God was on the side of the Union in the battle of good and evil.
Were they fully successful? The union was preserved, but sectional conflict remained. These newly emancipated people were only nominally free; they had to face massive resistance to their black citizenship.
As we’ve seen, after the war 3 Amendments gave equal protection for all citizens in the U.S. Constitution. These protections were the legal basis of the Civil Rights Movement almost a century later. It’s taken a long time for everyone to have their equal rights.
In the 1880s, these equal protections began to be eroded. U.S. veterans, both white and black, feared their sacrifices were being forgotten. Would the U.S. live up the ideals they had fought for and died for.
memory, myth, and a lamppost
A simple object can have complex meanings.
In 1864, the gas street lamp in the next picture stood in downtown Atlanta when the U.S. Army was laying siege to the city. On August 9, a shell struck the lamp, shattering its base. Solomon Luckie, a hotel barber and successful businessman, was the only casualty of this event; he was one of about 40 free blacks living in Atlanta.
In 1889, Luckie’s death was offered as proof that innocent civilians—both blacks and whites—were harmed by the U.S. military during the war.
In 1919, Confederate memorial organizations dedicated the lamp to Andrew West, a Confederate veteran of the Battle of Atlanta. At the 1939 premiere of Gone With the Wind, the lamp was christened “The Eternal Flame of the Confederacy.”
As African Americans fought for the right to vote, this glass-sided ballot box shows how those efforts were confronted by the South’s white majority.
During Reconstruction, ballots were color-coded by party. The glass allowed observers to see which party a voter supported, allowing whites to identify and intimidate blacks who voted against them.
But other methods were used to suppress the black vote, such as poll taxes and literacy tests.
Since no government services were available to assist him, he designed his own artificial devices to adapt to his injuries. Later he served as a doorkeeper in the U.S. Capitol.
From Wikipedia, “Mathew B. Brady was an American photographer. Known as one of the earliest and most famous photographers in American history, he is best known for his scenes of the American Civil War. He studied under inventor Samuel Morse, who pioneered the daguerreotype technique in America.”
It’s at the location of one of the 16 slave auctions in Atlanta.
This ends our time at the Atlanta History Center, but there is so much more that we could have seen inside the building and on the grounds. Maybe that’s what we’ll do the next time we visit.
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