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New Birth of Freedom:
Reconstruction During the Civil War
The Civil
War, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, brought to America "a
new birth of freedom." And during the war began the nation's efforts
to come to terms with the destruction of slavery and to define the meaning
of freedom.
By the war's end it was already clear that Reconstruction would bring
far-reaching changes in Southern society, and a redefinition of the place
of blacks in American life.
The
Civil War did not begin as a total war, but it soon became one:
a struggle that pitted society
against society. Never before had mass armies confronted each other on the battlefield with the deadly weapons created by the industrial revolution.
The resulting casualties dwarfed anything in the American experience. Some 650,000 men died in the war, including 260,000 Confederates -- over one-fifth of the South's adult white male population.
Copyright
2003