Civil war reconstruction essay america between 1865 and 1876 was very broken and disunited due to the obvious civil war. There was much effort put in my various powers to put together america again and attain the unity preferably desired by the central governing body. Both the congress and the citizenry participated to remedy the discretely disunited states. President johnson, who took office right after lincoln against the radical republicans to piece together america, is a perfect example of congressional effort put into the problem. As for the citizenry putting in effort, the freedmen’s bureau and sharecropping both showed a different paradigm of the problem on a level in which the average citizens could assist in unifying america again. Through examples we will soon see exactly how the two entities combined forces of the government and the people to fight for a common goal. The era of reconstruction still an essential learning tool for american history.

Reconstruction represents the often forgotten conclusion to the civil war, an attempt to address the social injustices that resulted from over two centuries of slavery. Civil rights freed of racial and gender limitations, race relations, states rights versus federal laws, the rise of financial and business trusts, the foundations for all the up to date вќ issues are succinctly excavated. In reality, very little progress in restoring rights to freed men during the first year or two after the civil war under johnson's moderate вќ approach. It was only after the radicals вќ forced federal intervention that blacks made significant progress. Democrats began to make headway in the south, often by the use of intimidation and violence, and what remained of the republican party began to change its agenda. After the war a north and south, black and white, political party feud, among rich whites, the poor white southerners, and the emancipated slaves.

Changing the lives of many of the nations groups forever, not necessarily for the better. A time of social, political, and economic rebuilding of the south in the many areas of the south had been destroyed after the war, cotton fields destroyed. President lincoln felt things must be restored back to normal immediately preceding the war. Abolishing the slavery among the old confederate state, ten percent of the voters agree to the oath of alliance and produce a form of government in which is in peace with the north.

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Wit in 1877, soon after retiring as president of the united states, ulysses s. In england, the son of the duke of wellington, whose father had vanquished napoleon, greeted grant as a military genius, the primary architect of union victory in the american civil war. Parading english workers hailed him as the man whose military prowess had saved the world’s leading experiment in democratic government and as a hero of freedom who had helped secure the emancipation of america’s four million slaves. Otto von bismarck, the chancellor of germany, welcomed grant as a nation builder, who had accomplished on the battlefield something national unity that bismarck was attempting to create for his own people.

As the reaction to grant’s tour demonstrates, contemporaries recognized the civil war as an event of international significance. The various meanings imparted to it offer a useful way of outlining why the civil war was so pivotal in our own history. The war changed the nature of warfare, gave rise to today’s american nation state, and destroyed a slave society unprecedented in the modern world. In its aftermath, during the era of reconstruction, americans struggled to come to terms with these dramatic changes and, temporarily, established biracial democratic government on the ashes of slavery.

In the physical destruction it brought to the south, the economic changes it produced throughout the nation, and the new ideas it spawned, the civil war altered the lives of several generations of americans. The 620,0 combatants who perished nearly outnumber those who died in all other american wars combined. For those who lived through it, the civil war would always remain the defining experience of their lives.

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The civil war is sometimes called the first modern war, although what constitutes modernity in warfare is a matter of debate. It was the first war to bring the full impact of the industrial revolution to bear on the battlefield. Railroads transported troops and supplies, and railroad junctions such as chattanooga, atlanta, and petersburg became major military objectives. The telegraph made possible instantaneous communication between generals and between the battlefield and home front. The war took place soon after a revolution in arms manufacture had replaced the traditional musket, accurate at only a short range, with the more modern, and deadly, rifle and bullet. This development changed the nature of combat, emphasizing the importance of heavy fortifications and elaborate trenches and giving those on the defensive usually southern armies an immense advantage over attacking forces. Total wartime casualties numbered well over one million, in an american population of around thirty two million.

The civil war began as a conventional contest of army versus army but by the end had become a war of society against society, with slavery, the foundation of the southern social order, becoming a target. In such a contest, civilian morale proved as crucial to sustaining and winning the war as events on the battlefield, and the population’s will to fight became as much a military consideration as armies in the field. Certainly, the union overshadowed the confederacy in manpower and economic resources. It had to conquer an area as large as western europe, while the confederacy, like the american patriots during the war of independence, could lose battle after battle and still win the war, if their opponents tired of the conflict. Thus, political leadership was crucial to victory, and lincoln proved far more successful than his confederate counterpart, jefferson davis, in mobilizing public sentiment. One historian has suggested that if the north and south had exchanged presidents, the south would have won the war.