More Reconstruction

13th, 14th, 15th Amendments

13th
The Thirteenth amendment outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Involuntary servitude is forcing a person into labor that will benefit another person. 
14th
This amendment grants citizenship to those who are born in the United States and also former slaves freed after the civil war.
15th
This amendment states that any male, if they are a citizen of the United States, regardless of race, has the right to vote.

Henry McNeal Turner and black legislators
Henry McNeal Turner was born free on February 1, 1834, in South Carolina. He was very interested in being a minister throughout his childhood and when he was just 14 years old he vowed to become a pastor. When he was 19, he received his preachers license. He worked at a church in St. Louis for many years. In 1865, Turner was appointed to the Freedman's Bureau in Georgia and settled down in Macon. Shortly after this, in 1868, Turner was elected to the Georgia legislature and helped to form the republican party of Georgia. 

At this time, however, the Democratic party controlled the Georgia legislature and refused to seat Turner and the 26 other newly elected black republicans. Afterwards, the federal government protested and Turner, as well as the other black legislators were able to be seated.

Henry McNeal Turner

http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/gastudiesimages/Henry%20McNeal%20Turner.htm

Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan was an anti-black hate group that was started in the Reconstruction Era by six white Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. The purpose of the KKK was to restore white supremacy in the United States. 

The Klan used public violence against blacks as intimidation and they also committed many violent acts such as burning homes, lynching black people and leaving their dead bodies on the road.  The KKK was active throughout the states of the former Confederacy.

Members of the Ku Klux Klan

 http://kukluxklan.net/terrorism/ku-klux-klan-acts-of-terror

Video: Brief History on the Ku Klux Klan

Reconstruction

Freedman's Bureau
Freedman's Bureau was a US government agency dedicated to helping out newly freed families in the south. The Bureau was headed by Union army general Oliver O. Howard and it lasted from 1865 to 1872, which was during the reconstuction era. In 1969, the Bureau lost funding from the US government and was forced to cut staff. After this, the Bureau was not as effective. 

Oliver O. Howard

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/oliver-howard.html

Freedman's Bureau encouraged urged African Americans to gain employment, pushing blacks and whites to work as employers and employees, and no longer as masters and slaves. In addition, the Bureau met the needs of blacks through distribution of clothing, water, health care and jobs, among many other things. The Bureau gave away 15 million rations of food to African Americans over time.

The Bureau is most widely recognized for its help in improving the education of black people. The Bureau spent $5 million creating public schools for blacks. The attendance rates at these schools was about 80% and by the end of 1865, 90,000 former slaves were enrolled public schools. The schools were so successful that the Bureau created their own textbook. 

One of the Many Schools created because of The Freedman's Bureau

http://www.trinityhistory.org/AmH/u7maps.htm

Sharecropping and Tenant Farming

Sharecropping and Tenant farming were both ways for newly freed blacks to make money and use the skills they already had from working on plantations as slaves. 

Sharecropping was a system of agriculture where the landowner would would allow the tenant land and the landowner got a portion of the crops produced in the land. The system was not as good as it seemed to be, though, because the average sharecropping plantation went into bankruptcy every twenty years. Sharecropping was very popular even long after the Civil War, during the Great Depression. In the early 1930's, there were around 5.5 million white sharecroppers and 3 million black sharecroppers in the United States. 

Sharecropping in the 1930's

http://2009greatdepression.wikispaces.com/Sharecroppers+in+the+1930s

In my opinion, tenant farming is a much better option than sharecropping. Tenant farming is where a tenant pays rent on the land and can keep all the crops produced.    

Other Reconstruction Plans
After Abraham Lincoln was murdered, his vice president, Andrew Johnson, became president. Lincoln had big plans for reconstruction, but Johnson did not carry them out. There was a group of people in Congress around the same time Johnson was called the "Radical Republicans." This party believed that confederate soldiers should be punished and that blacks were entitled to the same political rights and opportunities as whites. The radical republicans worked to continue on with the Freedman's Bureau, but President Johnson vetoed it. The also tried to pass a civil rights bill that was also vetoed by Johnson. After Johnson vetoed this, many moderate republicans became radical republicans and later this group introduced the Reconstruction Act of 1867. 

This act removed the right to vote and seek office by "leading rebels". It also divided the south into five military districts. Each district held commanders who could employ the army as well as protect black citizens and their property. 

Map of the Military Districts

 http://unitedstateshistorylsa.wikispaces.com/The+Radical+Reconstruction+Plan   

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Prison
Andersonville is by far the most notorious Civil War prisons. It was mostly known for horrible conditions and the cruel treatment of prisoners. Andersonville was located in what is now Andersonville, Georgia. 

http://www.bestplaces.net/city/georgia/andersonville

If you were to visit Andersonville, the things you would see would be quite gruesome  Many of the prisoners there were very thin because of the small amount of food they were fed. Many of them also became very sick. The cause of this was the contaminated water supply from the creek that ran through the prison. While there were wells at the prison, they were  were closed when prisoners to use to escape, hiding in them in the day and attempting to flee at night. 

Prisoners at Andersonville

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Union-Soldiers-Held-as-Prisoners-of-War-at-Andersonville-Prison-Camp

Although conditions at Andersonville were horrible, prisoners did not do much to help their case. They polluted their own water source by urinating and defecating in it.  When asked to get firewood, they would try to escape, so the guards of the prison no longer let them get firewood to keep warm. They also robbed each other and formed gangs, causing unneeded violence in the prison. 

Henry Wirz was the Commander of Andersonville prison. Neither the guards nor the prisoners liked or respected him, which was one of the reasons the prison turned out to be so horrible.  After the Civil War was over, Wirz was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death. Wirz was one of the few Confederates executed because of war crimes. 

Henry Wirz

http://murderpedia.org/male.W/w/wirz-henry-photos.htm

People often say conditions Andersonville were as awful as the Holocaust. Andersonville was liberated three months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox.