Reconstruction Mania

War just messes up everything. You're got the bombs, the guns, all the weapons. Fighting in the Civil War was very different than what we do today. The army had muskets, rifles, cannons (smoothbore and riffle), long-barrelled shoulder arms; rifles, shoulder guns; carbines, short-barrelled rifles; and handguns, including pistols and revolvers The armies got their smoothbore muskets, lined up and shot the other line. Usually the muskets had bayonets on the end of them so that they could run up on the opposite army and stab them.

Many people died during the Civil War. There were about 618,222 deaths were recorded. The Union had about 2,500,000-2,750,000 men. Recorded battle deaths for the Union reached 110,070 deaths. Disease death went as high as 250,152. The Confederate forces had about 750,000-1,250,000 men. The battle deaths reached about 94,000 and the disease deaths reached about 164,000.

Not only after the war did we have to reconstruct property and debt damages, but there were major racial issues to reconstruct also. The South is and always has been a major agricultural dependant and during the war the North burned a lot of their crops. This set the South at a major disadvantage, especially since the North also cut off their biggest seaport for trade. The South couldn't grow many things and they couldn't buy imported goods.

The Civil War split the country into two. The South was all about states rights and slavery. The North, not so much. Still today, the nation is divided. People are racist and aren't afraid to express how they feel. There are racist groups like the KKK, the White Supremacists, and the Pagans. Groups like this have the freedom to do what they want as long as they don't interfere with other people's rights. And you can also see this divide in the polls. The North is pretty much Democratic, while the South is Republican. It's been this way pretty much the whole time we've had elections.

People viewed the Reconstruction period as a corruption and misgovernment, letting blacks vote and to have equal rights as whites. This view helped justify the South's system of racial segregation. After extensive research and changes in American race relations, people now view the Reconstruction period as a far more favorable time. This was a big step for former slaves and the South as a whole. They totally changed their view on slavery, although some people still feel some way about it. The South has improved so much.

The North took the South in, helped the South recover; while they also recovered. They helped racial relationships to get better and helped somewhat with the economy. The Reconstruction was viewed as a positive and negative event, but the important question is, How do you view the Reconstruction era?