After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War by Gregory Downs published by Harvard University Press (2015) Hardcover $32.95 Kindle $18.12.
Before the 1960s, it was a commonplace to say that Lincoln freed the slaves. After the Civil Rights Revolution, some historians insisted that the slaves freed themselves. Now a more nuanced, multi-causal approach is taking hold. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did free many slaves, but it was issued in response to the growing numbers of slaves who fled to Union lines whenever the United States armies moved deeper into the rebel Confederacy. The combination of African American advocacy and actions, Lincoln’s executive action and Congress’s legal enactments, and the blunt instruments of the Union Armies combined with growing popular abolitionist sentiment worked together to break the back of legal slavery.
After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War by Gregory P. Downs published by Harvard University Press (2015) is an eye-opening scholarly examination of the army’s role in protecting refugees at the end of the war and helping them settle where they would. The military brought freedom at the point of the bayonet to blacks who had been enslaved until Union regiments arrived in their neighborhoods. The tragic story of the withdrawal of military protection by Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson sets the stage for the failures of Reconstruction.
The centrality of the army to the success or failure of the first stage of Reconstruction is illustrated by this passage from Downs; [After Appomattox] “the occupying army used its legal powers over civil governments and its geographic reach into the Southern countryside to try to set the terms for the end of slavery and the meaning of freedom.” In spite of modern memory which falsely depicts the South as under heavy handed military rule, after 1865 the withdrawal of forces from the region was rapid and would prove decisive in promoting the reestablishment of white-only rule.
There was a lot in this work that I had never considered before. One factor, for example, that created problems for the Union Army in controlling armed resistance to black freedom was the decision to cash in on the cavalry’s biggest asset. Soon after the end of the war the army started selling off cavalry horses to bring in cash. Infantry did a terrible job in pursuing the night riders who would plague African American communities throughout the Reconstruction Era. Who knew that such a stupid dollars and cents decision would impact on black voting rights?
Another surprise for me was that Andrew Johnson was at times aggressive in using the army to insure that blacks were no longer being held as slaves. Slavery did not end with the surrender of the Confederate armies. For months thereafter, African Americans in rural areas were only released from slavery when a company of soldiers marched to their plantation.
I have to say that this was one of my favorite books to read over the last few years. It is well written and incredibly well researched. It makes new points for even the jaundiced student of the Civil War. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in what happened after Lee rode home from Appomattox.
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:
