History 271

Devine

Summer 2010

Civil War and Reconstruction

1. What had the North “won” by winning the Civil War? What did the South lose?

2. Why were wealthy planters in the South in particularly bad shape after the Civil War?

3. What had African American freedmen in the South gained as a result of the Civil War? What had they lost?

4. What had poor whites in the South lost as a result of the Civil War?

5. Why did the South become so violent during the years immediately after the Civil War? Why did African Americans in particular become the target of so much violence?

6. What was Lincoln’s plan for reconstructing the South? Why was it hard for him to “sell” his plan to northern voters?

7. Why was it significant that Lincoln’s assassination was part of a conspiracy?

8. How did Andrew Johnson differ from Abraham Lincoln? Why did certain of Johnson’s personality traits not serve him well once he became President?

9. How did Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction differ from Lincoln’s? How did it reflect his own hatreds and prejudices?

10. Why was the Radical Republicans’ plan for reconstruction “radical”? What was the difference between Johnson’s “restoration” and the Radicals’ plans for “reconstruction”?

11. Why did the Radical Republicans initially win support from northern voters? Why did they eventually lose this support?

12. Why might we consider the story of Reconstruction a tragedy? Why might we also consider it an “unfinished” story (at least until the 1960s)?