President Johnson Accuses the Radical Republicans of Being Assassins Feb. 1866
With impeachment talk in the air back in 1866, Andrew Johnson came out swinging at the Radical Republicans. Hoping to shift the political scene in…
Reconstruction: Voices from America’s First Great Struggle for Racial Equality edited by Brooks Simpson
Reconstruction: Voices from America’s First Great Struggle for Racial Equality edited by Brooks Simpson published by The Library of America (2018) $40.00 Hardcover $19.99 Kindle. …
States Considered Giving Blacks Right to Sue for Being Held as Slaves after Emancipation Proclamation?
William Dunning in his Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics (1897, 2nd ed. 1904) says that at the various Southern state Constitutional…
The Prescript of the Ku Klux Klan 1867
The Prescript of the original Ku Klux Klan was adopted in Nashville in April 1867 and is available here. As with all documents from clandestine…
Where the Union Army Was at the Start of Reconstruction
In conjunction with Greg Downs’ recent book After Appomattox, online maps showing the role of the army in Reconstruction are available. This map shows towns…
13th Amendment Documents and Commentary
On December 15, 1865 Sec. of State William Seward announced that the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery had been ratified and that it was now the…
When There Was Opposition to the National Park Service Doing Reconstruction History It Came from Sons of Confederate Veterans
Now that the National Park Service is in the fourth year of its work on the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Beaufort, SC, it can…
Pres. Andrew Johnson’s “Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction” May 1865
President Andrew Johnson issued his “Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction,” on May 29, 1865. This proclamation would have a major impact on the South, Confederate…
Videos and Other Resources for Understanding the History of the 13th Amendment Ending Slavery
The 13th Amendment was one of the subjects of the film Lincoln, but the amendment was not ratified until half-a-year after the president’s death. In…
O.O. Howard Appointed Head of Freedmen’s Bureau May 1865
Although many historians now date the start of Reconstruction to the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 or even earlier, the creation of the Freedman’s…