· Perhaps one of the more disturbing Union government plans at the end of the War and during the early period of Reconstruction was the initiative to essentially recreate the Plantation workforce cotton-market in the South using former Slave labor.
The Union government merely took over the role of former Slave Masters in the South, the military took ownership of the land and Union troops became the new Overseers that controlled the “former” Slaves and even determining what behavior was and was not allowed on the plantations. Former Slaves, who thought they were free, found themselves forced back on the plantations as fieldhands under very similar conditions, but now forcefully restrained. As one Union official stated: “To entice the Slave from his plantation by calling him to freedom, without teaching him that freedom means labor, is cheating and deceiving him and the results will be those of deception.” William Dewight, Union Official.
If former Slaves were healthy enough to serve the Union effort then they were utilized by the Army, if not then they were simply locked up in what was called “Contraband Camps” or in some instances in what amounted to Slave pens. Emancipation solely depended on the ability of the former Slave to work and not on the lofty ideals spoken of by the Abolitionists in the North. Either way, it was a period and circumstance beyond our imagination; a time of horror, deprivation, starvation, sickness and death. A time of want and confusion for those whose expectations of freedom were crushed by the haste of an unprepared reality.
We rarely consider the massive destruction of life, not merely during the War for Southern Independence, but afterwards, to both Southern Blacks and Whites. During the War and through Reconstruction, it’s estimated that more than a million former Slaves died from disease and starvation with little hope for their future other than generational poverty. As far as Southern Whites, it can be estimated that equal numbers perished.
"General Howard, Freedmen's Bureau, estimated that 25% of African-Am. lost their lives by the war. [But] Ransom/Sutch estimated that 1.6% of African-Am. died as a direct result of the war. [based on the 3.5M blacks in the CSA, this would come to around 56,000 civilian [black] deaths. Howard's est. would be 875,000 d.]" Includes indirect deaths due to resulting starvation, and disease 1861-1865.
In testimony given before Congress, Judge Sharkey described the devastating impact which the "armies of freedom" and the "great emancipator" had upon the black race: "I believe that there are now in my State very little over half the number of freedmen that were formerly slaves, certainly not more than two-thirds. They have died off. There is no telling the mortality that has prevailed among them; they have died off in immense numbers." Before the Joint House and Senate Committee of Fifteen, 39th Congress, in the spring of 1866, reprinted in Hans. I., Trefousse (ed.), Background for Radical Reconstruction, Little, Brown, & Co., Boston, 1970, pp. 27-29.
Miss had 436,000 slaves in 1860, if Sharkey was right, that’s 130,000 Negro civilian deaths in Miss alone.
J. R. Graham, when looking at the issue of Negro civilian deaths, came to approximately 400,000 from death and starvation. Infant mortality rate of freed slaves was incredibly high. Many died from disease caused by mal nutrition. There were an estimated 1 million refugees in the South...a few managed to leave the South, some tried to go west to places like Texas or Kansas but many northern states had laws that did not allow blacks to enter their states. The federal government bit off more than it could handle when they freed 3.5 million slaves with no workable plan to feed or care for them.
After the War, massive numbers of Southerners were displaced, reduced to begging for scraps of food, decimated by sickness and disease, subject to criminals and Union military abuses. It became evident rather quickly that a person of the South could place no confidence or trust in the Union occupiers. Former Slaves and poverty-stricken Whites were no concern of Union troops, their victory in War was their consolation.
Many former families, both Black and White were dispersed, there was little ability to secure either shelter or food. The Union government, like the Union Army and the people of the South were totally unprepared for the results of the War and Emancipation which followed. The effects of this unpreparedness has lasted generations and, in fact, affects the South and indeed this country to this day. Of course, this horror story never fit into the sanitized narratives of Union victory, it appears to have been considered too politically problematic and thus it has been carefully avoided, brushed under the rug of political convenience.
Emancipation was wonderful for everyone but those emancipated. Of course, it was not publicized, but expressly ignored by government officials and the newspapers for decades after the War. The War devastated Southern crop land for cultivation, there was no seed, supplies and no work for either former Slaves nor poor Whites, all suffered equally from famine and disease. Reconstruction was nothing more than a period of empty political promises that never materialized except for the politically connected Carpetbaggers and Scallywags.
To add insult to injury, the Union government claimed they could only provide assistance to “citizens” therefore, leaving the devastated Southern States in charge of “non-citizens” and freemen or former Slaves. Eventually, the Union government created the Medical Division of the Freedmen's Bureau but it was specifically formed to divide the former Slave population into those that were considered “able-bodied” verses those who would be “dependent”. The Union government wanted a ready labor-force, but even that effort was a half-hearted attempt that provided little actual assistance to those in most need.
Reconstruction was a precursor to every subsequent failure of the federal government attempts at the consolidation and centralization in Washington D.C. The purpose of the War on the South was the destruction of federalism in this country and unfortunately, it was successful. Today we pay a far greater price for the actions of Lincoln and his Radical Republicans than we understand.
