Though the Civil War ended in April 1865, the conflict between
Unionists and Confederates continued. The bitterness and rancor
resulting from the collapse of the Confederacy spurred an ongoing
cycle of hostility and bloodshed that made the Reconstruction period a
violent era of transition. The violence was so pervasive that the
federal government deployed units of the U.S. Army in North Carolina
and other southern states to maintain law and order and protect blacks
and Unionists.
_Bluecoats and Tar Heels: Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction
North Carolina_ tells the story of the army's twelve-year occupation
of North Carolina, a time of political instability and social unrest.
Author Mark Bradley details the complex interaction between the
federal soldiers and the North Carolina civilians during this
tumultuous period. The federal troops attempted an impossible juggling
act: protecting the social and political rights of the newly freed
black North Carolinians while conciliating their former enemies, the
ex-Confederates. The officers sought to minimize violence and unrest
during the lengthy transition from war to peace, but they ultimately
proved far more successful in promoting sectional reconciliation than
in protecting the freedpeople.
Bradley's exhaustive study examines the military efforts to stabilize
the region in the face of opposition from both ordinary citizens and
dangerous outlaws such as the Regulators and the Ku Klux Klan. By
1872, the widespread, organized violence that had plagued North
Carolina since the close of the war had ceased, enabling the bluecoats
and the ex-Confederates to participate in public rituals and social
events that served as symbols of sectional reconciliation. This
rapprochement has been largely forgotten, lost amidst the postbellum
barrage of Lost Cause rhetoric, causing many historians to believe
that the process of national reunion did not begin until after
Reconstruction. Rectifying this misconception, _Bluecoats and Tar
Heels_ illuminates the U.S. Army's significant role in an understudied
aspect of Civil War reconciliation.
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Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780813138848
Publisert
2013
Utgiver
Vendor
The University Press of Kentucky
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Antall sider
382
Forfatter