33.8 America: a.d. 1801 to 1900  (Page 20/31)

During this war, Lincoln wielded a greater power than any president up to the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt and in actuality he was a dictator, from the standpoint of constitutional law. Under one of his proclamations, over 13,000 persons were arrested and confined by military authority for offenses ranging from theft of government property to treason. Lincoln had many enemies in the north, ranging from the religious Osgoodites, who considered him the Beast of the Book of Revelations, to the defeatists "Copperheads", who only wanted to negotiate and finally the "barnburning" Knights of the Golden Circle in the middle west. Lincoln also enraged the Congress by arbitrary acts that went of ten beyond the Constitution or the authority which Congress felt that he had. Until his death he was never wildly popular.

Every school child knows of General Lee's surrender to General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox on April 12, 1865 and of Lincoln's assassination at Ford's theater on the night of April 1 4th at the hand of an actor, John Wilkes Booth, declared to be insane. Some southern armies and vessels surrendered at various times subsequently, the last on November 6th, when the C.S.S. Shenandoah surrendered to British authorities. (Ref. 151 , 39 )

Map taken from Ref. 97

The immediate effects of the civil war

In the north

Production was stimulated in the north and in Philadelphia alone some 180 factories were built within 3 years. Immigration from Europe increased with 800,000 people coming within 5 years. Labor saving devices invented at that time, or in general use, included the Howe sewing machine, the Gordon McKay shoe machine and the mechanical reaper. Pennsylvania oil production went up to 128,000,000 gallons in 3 years. Ref ining methods allowed kerosene glass lamps to light American and English farmhouses. The Homestead Act in 1862 stimulated westward migration and opened up new prairie farmlands. Great fortunes were started - Armour (meatpacking), Havemeyer (sugar), Remington (guns), Carnegie (iron and steel), Borden (milk) and Marshall Field (merchandise). 40,000,000 bushels of wheat and flour were exported in 1861. New states were added during and after the civil conflict. (See map on previous page). Some 15 new colleges were established, including Vassar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, La Salle, Cornell and Swarthmore. At the end of the war, after the Confederate General Early had raided up to within sight of the capitol, there was inflation and paper dollars fell 2/3 in value-and the cost of living soared.

In the south

The war effort absorbed all. Transportation was wanting so that food and supply distribution was very bad, both during and af ter the war. Some areas starved, while others still had plenty. Texas was geographically removed from it all and uninvaded (except by Comanches) until 1865. Luxuries were imported from Mexico.

The reconstruction period. 1865 - 1877

There was an extremely rapid demobilization of Union forces and, amazingly, generalized acceptance of the war 's result by the south. Of several thousand southerners who refused to return to allegiance to the nation, a large part went to Texas, with a few to Europe, Brazil and Mexico. Reconstruction is still a controversial subject in American history, of ten distorted by emotion. Still it was a deplorable and tragic period. For up to three years no compulsion was put on the southern states to enfranchise the Negro, but during that time nothing was done to prepare him for citizenship either and much was done to humiliate him and keep him "down". In spite of the stereotype picture of the northern Republicans beating and robbing the south, in actuality millions of dollars of northern money poured into the south for food, education and various charities. Congress, too performed wonders in relief, but not in racial adjustments. President ANDREW JOHNSON appointed provisional civil governors in every former Confederate state where Lincoln had not already done so. The South replaced slavery with the "Black Codes", which everywhere kept the Negro a second class citizen.