Klu Klux Klan

     The Klu Klux Klan was a white supremacies group that arose during the time of the civil war.  They were very extreme and often times lynched black men and women from trees or burned there homes.  It was an extremely popular group in the 1860s and 70s and was estimated to have around 500,000 members at the time.  They often wore long white robes and hoods to look terrifying and to hide there identities.  The group also claims to be very Christian centered although, some of there ceremonies resemble more of a cult style group.  Also the Klan sometimes references themselves as savior nights.

                                              The Klu Klux Klan Emblem

Henry McNeal Turner

     Henry McNeal Turner was the first bishop of The African Methodist Episcopal Church.  He also fought with the United States Colored Troops in the civil war.  After the war, for a time, he served on the Freedman's Bureau.  But soon after that Turner realized that the Freedman's Bureau was not accomplishing everything it promised to do, there was still white hatred for blacks and still many laws in place to harm of hinder black advancement.  Because of this, Turner began to support black migration back to Africa.  His movement grew greatly after WWI.

                                               Henry McNeal Turner

Sharecroping

     Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land. Sharecropping became very popular after the war.  When many blacks could not find jobs and owned no land to farm on, the had to resort to sharecropping.  Usually, sharecropping is a bad arrangement for the tenant and they are almost always cheated out of their money.  Although it was not ideal, it was the only job many blacks could find after the war.

 

Freedman's Bureau, Civil War Reconstruction, and the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments

     The Freedman's Bureau was an agency put in place by Abraham Lincoln to aide the transition from slavery to freedom for the liberated slaves.  It was put into place in 1865 and was initially only supposed to last a year after the end of the war.  However, after the first year was up, most of what had been expected to be done had not been.  Because of this, the Freedman's Bureau lasted until 1872 when President Ulysses S. Grant declared it unnecessary.
     The Freedman's Bureau was a vital part of an era after the civil war called reconstruction.  However, it was merely one of the many programs that the Lincoln administration put into place during this period.  Reconstruction was enacted to help rebuild and rehabilitate the war ravaged south.   Reconstruction also helped many newly freed slaves by educating them and finding them jobs.  Reconstruction lasted for 14 years or from 1863 to 1877.
     Another important part of reconstruction was the amendments passed after the war.  Theses were the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.  The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States, it was amended on December 6, 1865.  The 14th amendment granted all former slaves citizenship, it was ratified on June 13, 1866.  Finally, there was the 15th amendment.  This granted all black citizens the right to vote, it was ratified on February 3, 1870.

                                                      A Freedman's Bureau Agent

Andersonville Prison

 

     Andersonville was a prison in Georgia during the civil war. It was opened in February of  1864 by the Confederacy to hold captured Union soldiers.  At total, it held around 45,000 men when it was only originally built for 10,000 men.  The conditions were so poor that 13,000 out of those 45,000 men died.  Some of the big problems with the prison were; polluted water, predatory gangs, malnourishment, and lack of good leadership for the guards.  Another thing that killed many prisoners was the dead line.  The dead line was a line that, if crossed, the guards were instructed to shoot the prisoner who crossed.  This line was put in place by the Georgia infantry, when the prison was passed on to them, as a way of maintaining control over the large population of inhabitants in the prison.  The prison was finally shut down in May of 1865 by liberating Union soldiers.

 

The Atlanta Campaign and Sherman's March

     The Atlanta Campaign was a series of battles fought in and around Atlanta, Georgia.  The campaign began when Union General William T. Sherman invaded Georgia in May of 1864.  Once the campaign began, Sherman's army marched south towards Atlanta, hoping to take over what was most likely the second most important city to the Confederates.  It took five months before Sherman's army reached Atlanta.  He finally took the city on September 2, 1864.
     Sherman's March or otherwise known as the Savannah Campaign was a 300 mile march from Atlanta to Savannah made by General Sherman and his army.  It began on November 16, 1864.  Its purpose was to weaken the south and it would accomplish this by destroying the southern countryside as they passed through it.  Sherman burned farms and houses, killed livestock, stole food and goods, and freed the slaves of many southern civilians.  This weakened the southern economy and also scared southern troops into deserting to protect their families and homes.  Sherman finally arrived in Savannah, Georgia, his final destination, on December 21, 1864.

 

The Union Blockade

     The Union blockade took place when the Union Navy prevented the passage of goods, supplies, and arms to and from the Confederacy. Ships that tried to get passed the blockade, called blockade runners, were mostly high-speed ships operated by the British off duty naval officers and ran between Confederate ports Havana, Cuba, Nassau, Bahamas, and Bermuda, where British suppliers had set up bases.
    Abraham Lincoln announced the blockade on April 19, 1861. His strategy required 3,500 miles of Confederate coastline and twelve major ports, including New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama to be blockaded. For that, the Union required 500 ships, which destroyed or captured about 1,500 blockade runners during the war.

 

Battle of Chickamauga

     The Battle of Chickamauga was fought on September 19-20, 1863 near Chickamauga Creek.  It is known as the second bloodiest battle of the civil war, after Gettysburg with a total of 34,624 deaths, captures, and missing in actions.  It was fought when the Confederate army of Tennessee attacked the invading Union army.  The Union soldiers had been on an invasion campaign known as the Chickamauga Campaign attempting to take Chattanooga, Tennessee for the Union.  This battle put a halt to this campaign, however.  The union army was outnumbered and towards the end of the battle, outmaneuvered.  After two days of battle, the were finally forced to retreat.

 

Emancipation Proclamation

     The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863.  It was an attack against the south and an attempt to weaken and deter them.  It stated that every slave in all of the states in rebellion against the union are free.  Aside from enraging and weakening the south, the new order put a new driving moral force behind the union soldiers.  This means that many of the soldiers felt driven and motivated to liberate the slaves.  It also caused many slaves to run from their masters to join the army and help liberate their brothers in bondage.

Antietam and Gettysburg

     The Battle of Antietam also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg was fought on September 17, 1862.  It was the bloodiest day in American history, with 22,717 dead, wounded, and missing on both sides.  It occurred because Confederate General Robert E. Lee attacked and attempted to take over Antietam, a Union supply railroad.  Although he was unsuccessful and forced to retreat, most say that his army fared much better than it should have.  He was vastly outnumbered by the Union army and also had no simple route of escape because behind him was Antietam River.  He and his army were however able to retreat, not unscathed but still a formidable force, when they should have been destroyed because of Union General George B. McClellan's awful tactics.
     Another devastating battle in the civil war was the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on July 1-3, 1863.  This battle was known as the bloodiest battle in the civil war with 46,286 casualties.  It is also often known as "the war's turning point".  The battle was fought because Lee, who had just won a decisive battle against the Union in Virginia, was confident enough to launch a second attack on Northern Union territory.  Lee led his army north through Shedowa Valley to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where the Union and Confederate forces collided.  Finally, after three days of battle, the Confederate army was forced the retreat back to Virginia and the Gettysburg Campaign was over.

                                                         The Battle of Gettysburg

Secession In Georgia and Alexander Stephens's Role

     By 1860, Georgia was greatly divided over the issue of secession.  There were two sides, the secessionists and the co-operationists, who wanted Georgia to stay with the union.  The co-operationists were led by Alexander Stephens and the secessionists by Howell Cobb.  After months of debating and pressure to secede from South Carolina, Georgia finally decided to have a state wide vote.  Georgians would vote for delegates to represent their decision about secession at the "Secession Convention".  Once elected the delegates took a vote and the result was extremely pro-succession.  So therefore, it was decided that Georgia would succeed from the union and join South Carolina.

 

The Election of 1860

     The United States presidential election of 1860 was run primarily between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.  Lincoln was a northern republican and Douglas was a southern democrat.  Douglas' running mate was Herschel Johnson and Lincoln's was Hannibal Hamlin.  Lincoln received most of his support from New York, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and his home state of Illinois.  His contender received support from most of the southern "slave" states, such as Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  On the day of the election, however, Douglas only won one state's electoral votes, Kentucky's.  He did win over 1 million votes in for the popular vote (a lot back then), but could not sway a majority of any state besides Kentucky.  Because of this Lincoln won the election.

The Dred Scott Case

Dred Scott, was a slave who unsuccessfully sued for his, his wife's, and his two daughter's freedom in the Dred Scott vs. Stanford case of 1857.  The case was based on the fact that even though he and his family were slaves, they had lived with their master, John Emerson, in a state where slavery was illegal, Wisconsin.  When his master took Scott back to a slave state he sued saying he was a free man because he had lived in Wisconsin.  Scott ended up bringing his case all the way to the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court, however, decided 7–2 against Scott, saying that neither he nor any other slave could be considered a citizen of the United States, and therefore Scott could not file a suit in court. Also, Scott's temporarily living in a free state did not free him under the Missouri Compromise, which the court ruled unconstitutional as it would wrongly steal property from Scott's owner.  In conclusion this case only further dived the North and South over the issue of slavery.

The Compromise of 1850 and Kansas-Nebraska Act

    The compromise of 1850 was a bill passed in order to undo some of the growing tensions between the south and the north.  Most of this tension came from the Missouri Compromise of 1820.  The southern slave state of Texas wanted to expand its state above the slave line and still wanted to be able to have slaves there.  And the north wanted the new state of California to be free even though half was below the 30 degree line.  Because of this the act had multiple purposes, one was that Texas had to give up its land claims above the slave line, another was that California became a free state.  One of the biggest southern gains was the admission of the fugitive slave act.  Another portion of the act was that slave trade was banned in Washington D.C.
     However, although both sides agreed with the compromise, both had parts they did not like.  That is why Georgia founded the Georgia Platform.  It was a widely accepted rule that stated after the compromise passed.  It stated that Georgia would succeed from the union if the union encroached any farther on their state rights.
     Eventually even with the compromises made in the 1850 bill there were still problems with the Missouri Compromise.  A big problem was with the creation of the new Kansas and Nebraska territories.  Those territories wanted to become slave states but were too far north for this to be legal.  Because of this the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed.  It found the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and finally repealed it.

Missouri Compromise

     The Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 as an agreement between the north and south.  It was written because Missouri, a territory at the time, wished to join the United States.  If Missouri joined then there would be and unbalanced amount of "free" and "slave" states and this would create an unbalanced, "pro-slave" opinion in congress.  To avoid this a northern state had to be added as well.  Because of this part of the northern state of Massachusetts became a new state, Maine.

 

     After this compromise, a bill was written to help avoid any more problems of this sort.  It stated that any state north of the parallel of 36 degrees shall not permit slavery.  This bill was the Missouri Compromise of 1820.