When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, 1865-1867 - Hardcover

Carter, Dan T.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807111929 ISBN 13: 9780807111925

Publisher: Louisiana State University Pre, 1985

Synopsis

Dan T. Carter's When the War Was Over is a social and political history of the two years following the surrender of the Confederacy--the so-called period of Presidential Reconstruction when the South, under the watchful gaze of Congress and the Union army, attempted to rebuild its shattered society and economic structure. Working primarily from rich manuscript sources, Carter draws a vivid portrait of the political leaders who emerged after the war, a diverse group of men--former loyalists as well as a few mildly repentant fire-eaters--who in some cases genuinely sought to find a place in southern society for the newly emancipated slaves, but who in many other cases merely sought to redesign the boundaries of black servitude. Carter finds that as a group the politicians who emerged in the post-war South failed critically in the test of their leadership. Not only were they unable to construct a realistic program for the region's recovery--a failure rooted in their stubborn refusal to accept the full consequences of emancipation--but their actions also served to exacerbate rather than allay the fears and apprehensions of the victorious North. Even so, Carter reveals, these leaders were not the monsters that many scholars have suggested they were, and it is misleading to dismiss them as racists and political incompetents. In important ways, they represented the most constructive, creative, and imaginative response that the white South, overwhelmed with defeat and social chaos, had to offer in 1865 and 1866. Out of their efforts would come the New South movement and, with it, the final downfall of the plantation system and the beginnings of social justice for the freed slaves.

About this title

About the Author

Dan T. Carter is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Southern History at Emory University. He is the author of Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize in History for 1969.

Edition details

• Publisher: Louisiana State University Pre
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807111929
• ISBN 13: 9780807111925
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 369