Reconstruction after Civil War

Reconstruction after Civil War

Introduction

Reconstruction was the process of bringing the 11 seceded Southern states back into the Union. The term also describes the period directly after the Civil War. Until fairly recently, Reconstruction was portrayed as an evil time when ignorant and base African Americans, corrupt and greedy carpetbaggers, and treacherous scalawags ruled and ruined the helpless white Southern population. According to this interpretation, only when the Southern Democratic "redeemers" recaptured the state governments from the Republican Party did sanity again prevail throughout the region. The current history books present a far more positive and more complex depiction ...