Amendments, Henry McNeal Turner and the KKK

 

Amendments

 

 

      The Thirteenth Amendment was one of the last thing the President Abraham Lincoln did before he was shot by John Wilkes Boothe. It made slavery illegal, fully abolishing it. The Fourteenth Amendment basically helped with the protection of civil rights to all the Americans, but mainly the African Americans since they were being discriminated against at the time. The Fifthteenth Amendment stated that African American men could vote legally but some states in the south did not take that into effect until well into the mid twentieth century.

 

Henry McNeal Turner  

       Henry McNeal Turner was a very influential African American. he was born in South Carolina but was not born a slave because his grandmother was a white plantation owner while his grandfather was a slave that had been brought here from Africa. He was part of the church and was a missionary but he was also in politics during the time of the reconstruction era after the Civil War. He along with other predominate African Americans finally who could now make their voices heard, because until now most backs were unheard. He was elected into the Georgia House of Representatives and was one of the few blacks. He was an eloquent speaker but did not sway many white representatives. After he was elected, the threats from the KKK started to come in.

 

 

 

 

 The Ku Klux Klan

 

 

 

     The KKK or Ku Klux Klan started out as a group of very Conservative white democratic males that did not like blacks at all. They wanted to keep white supremacy by enforcing acts of terror on African Americans not just hate mail that made racial slurs but the KKK went all the way as to kill African Americans and even whites too because they were Republicans. At its peak the KKK killed thousands of innocent black as well as white Americans. 

 

 Pictured above is a picture taken on a KKK meeting

http://kukluxklan.net/terrorism/ku-klux-klan-acts-of-terror
http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-632
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxv
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/14thamendment.html

 

Freedman's Bureau, Sharecropping and Reconstruction

Freedman's Bureau

 The Freedman's bureau was something that the government did for recently freed black slaves in the south to translate smoothly into being free and owning land that was abandoned. It also established colleges and some education for blacks. One of the colleges was called Howard University  was named after General Howard who was a civil war hero who treated blacks with respect. The bureau also made it possible for justice to be served  with African Americans in the state courts. Although the Freedman's bureau only lasted for seven years ending in 1872, it made a difference. 

Oliver Howard

   

Sharecropping

             Sharecropping was a form of labor that was mainly used in the South. For the recently freed slaves this was one of the very few options they had to make a living. So even though they did not own land they would work the crops, but at the end of the harvest, the plantation owners would pay the workers.  There was also something called tenant farming where you work on the farm but pay some rent to stay and live. Although  many freed African Americans would have liked this statement, "forty acres and a mule," which was a quote that William Sherman said as he was on his March to the Sea Campaign when he was freeing the slaves and would essentially offer them a mule and forty acres of land to farm.

Also by the end of the harvest if they saved money workers could buy land or equipment. By 1880, 32% of the farms in Georgia were operated by sharecroppers.

Reconstruction

     Lincoln has  10% plan in place so when the war was over and 10 percent of the the southerners who has succeeded would take an oath to allegiance to the Union and then the south was officially back in the Union. This was around the time when Lincoln was killed so when Johnson took office he wanted to make it impossible for the states to succeed from the Union. But because Johnson was a former Democrat he was more lenient and not as harsh as some of the radical republican wanted him to be. Although others say if he wasn't as lenient the reconstruction period after the civil war might have taken much longer.  

      

         

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Radical_Republicans#Reconstruction

http://ncpedia.org/sharecropping     

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3590

http://www.kawvalley.k12.ks.us/schools/rjh/marneyg/05_history-projects/05_flinnr_Freedmen's-Bureau.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_freed.html

Sherman's March To The Sea and Andersonville

 

Sherman's March To The Sea

 

 

         After occupying one of the South's most important cities, Atlanta, He decided that he would embark on a journey all the way south to Savannah and only he and a handful of the highest officers knew it. William T. Sherman was going to use a brand new strategy known as "Total War" which is when a army uses all of the available resources in area. And trust Sherman and his army did. What was risky about it was that there was no regular food line and no communication with the outside world. Sherman wanted to end this war once and for all. His army set fire to many parts of Atlanta as he left and as he marched south he burned the cotton and all the crops the soldiers did not eat so the plantations would be left with nothing. Now the slaves saw this man and thanked he very much but they had a choice to stay which Sherman urged them to do or go along with the army. This all but ensured Lincoln's reelection, Atlanta's railroads were destroyed and on top of that General Lee had to replace General Johnston because he refused to fight the Union.

 

 

Sherman's rout to Savannah

 

 

Andersonville

 

              

          Was if not the worst thing that happened in the Civil War. Located today Southwest of Macon it is a National Historic Site but unfortunately it was not 150 years ago. They choose that location for its remoteness and because it was a safe distance from where the war was being fought. It was only designed to hold 10,000 people but it held triple that with over 30,000 men and sometimes women in that case. Women had been found to dress up like men because soldiers got more money than women did at other jobs. In all for every 45 people who went inside that camp, 13 never came out alive. That's right 45,000 people were in that camp when it was up in running. But what is so mind boggling is that the camp had the supplies to move prisoners hundreds of miles but choose not to do so. But what the worst thing was when the men had just died and they were still warm inside their cloths were striped of them. This is how bad this place was.  

       

 

 

      Henry Wirz was Confederate Captain. He got the rank after showing "great bravery" after he was struck with a mini ball. He was one of the most to blame for these terrible living conditions and unsanitary. He would have unfair executions and the escape rate was close to zero unless prisoners were outside collecting fire wood. But that ended when prisoners did escape and the camp stopped allowing the Union POWs of war. After the war he was the only man to be hanged for civil war crimes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.ducksters.com/history/shermans_march_to_the_sea.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andersonville_National_Historic_Site

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wirz

 

 



Union Blockade of Ga Coast and Sherman's Atlanta Campaign

 

Union Blockade of Ga's Coast

 

         The blockade was critical in ending the war. Now this wasn't just of Georgia's coast it was a blockade of all the southern coastlines. By the year 1862 the Union had put them selves around the South's most important ports for exporting goods. The most important one for the state of Georgia was the port of Savannah, which the North stressed that they block all shipments going in and going out. The South countered and put more troops around the railroad lines fearing the would be the next thing the Union would go for. The Fingal was a ship that Edward C. Anderson had and did not get caught. But this was probably more of a negative to the South than the North because it exposed the holes in their blockade so from then on very few ships were able to escape with out being captured.

  

 

 

 

Sherman's Atlanta Campaign

 

 

      The Atlanta Campaign was very risky, if William Sherman were to do this it would create a whole new strategy that the world had never seen before. There were four reasons why Sherman believed he could win: 1) More troops 2) Efficient supply system 3) More moral that Confederates and 4) He knew the general he was facing was really unaggressive. These reasons were good enough for Lincoln to approve Sherman's advance. Sherman captured the city buy flanking around Atlanta and then destroying the railroad lines that were coming into city so it was cutting all the supply lines from going into Atlanta.  So thus making the Conferederate General Johnston retreat.

 



       

 

 

 

 

 

 

Battle of Atlanta

 

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2713

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3763

http://thomaslegion.net/civil_war_blockade_strategy_board.html



Gettysburg and Chickamauga

 

 

 

Gettysburg

 

 

 

           The battle of Gettysburg happened between July 1- July 3 1863. With a grand total of 165,000 troops battling on both sides. General Lee feeling confident after winning the Battle of Chancellorsville, he decided to switch his strategy and go on the offensive. He led his army from Virginia to invade Pennsylvania to collect supplies and to make the North want to make peace since they didn't want to lose anymore lives. The Union moved to the north to block Lee from the nation's capital. The battle began with the Confederates beating the Union of the first day, but what Lee didn't know was that the Union had got more troops overnight, so when the second day of fighting took place the Union held their own. On the third day of the fight Union beat and assault of 12,000 Confederate troops and repelled them giving the Confederate army significant loses in men. In the end the Union won the three day battle and pushed Lee's army back south.

 

 

 

Chickamauga

 

 

        The Battle of Chickamauga was fought on the days of September 18-20 1863. The result was a Confederate victory. With a total of about 35,000 casualties. The Generals for this battle were on the Confederate side : Braxton Bragg and James Longstreet and on the Union side: William S.  Rosecrans. After an General Rosecrans pushed the rebels back at the Battle of Chattanooga General Braxton Bragg got reinforcements and eager to get  back Chattanooga he met the Union army near Chickamauga Creek were they fought for 3 days. General Bragg eventually won and forced Rosecrans to fall back but two months later General Grant arrived with more troops and won back Chickamauga.

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.history.com/topics/battle-of-chickamauga

http://capitolbadgers.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/gettysburg-what-happens-if-the-south-wins/

 http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg.html?tab=facts

 http://www.wpclipart.com/American_History/civil_war/battles/battles_2/battle_of_Chickamauga.jpg.html

 

 



Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamtion

Antietam

Antietam was the bloodiest day of the Civil War with 22,000 casualties combined. This battle was very important because even though the battle was a draw, other countries in Europe did not join the war because the South did not prove to them that they could win the war. The Union should of won easily because they had a 2 to 1 advantage with troops. Then prior knowledge that General George B. McClellan was that Lee's forces were in front of the Potomac River so they could not retreat. But even though it was a military draw, this gave the the President of the United States Abraham Lincoln the "victory" he needed to state the Emancipation Proclamation.

This war was really the first war that took
pictures of what war really looked like.





Emancipation Proclamation

   

The Emancipation Proclamation said that slaves in the rebellious states were free. But slaves living in the border states were no freed. But the proclamation also allowed African Americans to join the army for the North which they so desperately needed to fight against the south. But this gave the war a new reason to fight for a new "moral force" for the Union to keep fighting.   

Add caption

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1549.html 

 http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/antietam.html

Succession in GA and Alexander Stephens

Georgia was the 5th state to succeed from the Union on January 19, 1861. But before Georgia succeeded people had to vote. People who wanted to leave the Union were called secessionists and the people who wanted to stay with the union were creationists. Alexander Stephens had said earlier in his life that slavery was  " that abominable human tragedy" but when it was obvious that Georgia was succeeding he signed the Ordinance of Succession, which basically the constitution for the Confederates. Eventually the former Unionists won the vice presidency for the south and became Vice President of the Confederacy. After the South lost the war Stephens was taken to prison for five months at Boston's Fort Warren. after her was released he was elected into the U.S Senate under the new President Andrew Jackson's "forgiving reconstruction theme" although much to many northerners disapproval.

Above Alexander Stephens

Stephens name is on
one of those heads.

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2492
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/alexanderstephens.htm