1. History Through Literature
Unit 2
Chapter 5: Grant and Reconstruction

2. Grant From Ohio Graduated from West Point (middle of class)
Good horsemen
Sent to infantry in Mexican War
Left army before court-martialed – alcohol
Worked in father’s leather store in Galena
Civil War started – great!

3. Bad Grant Butcher Grant Scandal
Drinking, recklessness, disregarded the lives of his troops
Corrupt administrations
Abandoned the newly freed African Americans
Native Americans – turned over to Christians do-gooders
Turned Republican party of common man, slaves, and Lincoln into the party of big business

4. Grant the General Only General that beat Robert E. Lee
Losses were regrettable
After WWI – butcher again
Everything is expendable, so long as you win
Goal was not to annihilate the Rebels, but to force them to lay down their arms and rejoin the Union.

5. Johnson and the Radicals
Fought over reconstruction
Johnson lenient towards Southerners
Radicals , wants suffrage towards Freemen
1867 – Radicals take over Congress – impeach Johnson – survives by one vote
Radical Reconstruction begins

6. Ku Klux Klan Scottish Founded in Tennessee in 1866
African Americans subject to random terror
Wanted to replace Freemen with Confederates in local governments
Operated at night – lynching, murder, arson, rape, whipping, mutilation, and economic coercion
Terrorize Blacks who would be leaders

7. Grant to the rescue
Only ran because he thought he had to save the Union – very splintered
Goal was to bring peace and rights for citizens to blacks – found out he couldn’t do both.

8. Grant as President

9. Grant and Civil Rights
1871 got passed the Ku Klux Act in response to the KKK attacking South Carolina’s state government (first ever Civil Rights Act)
Sent 16 companies of troops to South Carolina
Threatened to send more troops – violence subsided
1874 – riots broke out in New Orleans – again threatened to send troops – worked
Grant damned no matter what he did. If he supported the blacks – charged with promoting the Republican party. If he did nothing, then only whites would vote and vote all Democrat and the blacks would be up the creek.

10. Sheridan In December of 1874 – New Orleans flared up again
Sent Sheridan to take care of it
Sheridan took on the “White League” and wanted them declared banditti and tried in military courts
Congress was outraged (Democrats had taken control) – Grant defended himself, allowed Sheridan to do his work, but never again sent troops into the South.

11. The End Election of 1876 Samuel Tilden and Rutherford Hayes
Hayes could be president if the North removed troops, the south promised not to use force to make Tilden President and to treat the freemen “humanely.”
The Republicans gave up on the Freeman to keep the Presidency

12. Ambrose Whished he would have wrote a book on Grant
Next President to send troops to the south for Civil rights was Eisenhower in 1957 to enforce Brown v. Board of Education
Tried to do more for blacks then any President until LBJ in the 60’s. Only time Grant every gave up.
“Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent”
He was a great American who did far more good for our country that most generals or Presidents can even approach.

13. Read Read in the Kennedy book – pages 504-511
Is there a big difference between Kennedy and Ambrose? Explain some differences.
Is Kennedy bias? Give some adjectives.
Is there two different sets of history for Grant?