Period 5, Day 4-5: The Potential of Reconstruction

While the Emancipation Proclamation free all slaves, it did prompt thousands of slaves to join the Union army and fundamentally change the nature of the Civil War into a moral cause against slavery. By war’s end, some blacks served in the Union army, which was about of total enlistments. Units, however, were segregated and Blacks were still paid less.

More than soldiers died in action or disease, which is equivalent to 2% of the entire nation’s population and the death toll of subsequent wars combined.

The cost of the war totaled , and devastation to the land and economy in the South.

The Reconstruction era refers to the period the Civil War when attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy. The U.S. federal government also needed to determine how to the 11 Confederate states back into the Union.

After the war, formerly enslaved African Americans responded to freedom in different ways. After celebrating the end of the war and their new freedom, most tried to with their separated families. Some set up new institutions, including schools, while participating in politics by voting and even serving in government.

Although formerly enslaved African Americans were land and resources from the government to set up their own farms, most did not receive these. Some who did receive land and resources later had them taken away. Newly freed people had to figure out how to survive and support their families.

For about 10 years after the Civil War, the federal government provided to the formerly enslaved and took steps under Reconstruction to protect their political and civil rights, but these advances were later overturned.