Reconstruction

An odd thing happened at the end of the War Between the States.  While most of the returning Southern veterans came back to their farms with little animosity to the Yankee armies, withing a few short years resentment was smouldering.  This isn't taught in the public schools, up in Yankeeland.

It should be.

The ferocity of Reconstruction is only hinted at in most textbooks.  You get a flavor of it in Lincoln's second inaugural address:

Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Reconstruction was intended to be a scourge.  You get a flavor of this in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.  But all of this is only a flavor, and doesn't give a visceral feeling of the ferocity of the program.  Without that visceral feeling, there's simply no way to understand the hatred (the word is not too strong) that two generations felt.

As a public service to Yankees, here is a visual guide to help you feel that ferocity.  Exhibit A, the veteran's cemetery in Marietta, GA:

Photo copyright Borepatch

This is a beautiful site with well maintained grounds, the final resting place of thousands of Billy Sherman's men (and also veterans from subsequent conflicts).  Of the War Between The States casualties, only Union dead are buried here*.  You find the Confederate dead in Marietta's Confederate cemetery:

Photo copyright Borepatch

The difference is not so much in the poverty of the landscaping, although that's a minor sign.  Rather, it is in the fact that 80% of the graves are for unknown soldiers.  Therein lies the tale.

Most of the dead were identified when they were originally buried in 1864.  They had wooden markers placed on their graves, with the name of the deceased painted on it.  The war ended, and work began on the Union cemetery - much time was spent in Washington D.C. on veterans, and the Pension building was designed so that the staircases had a shallow rise, to make it easier for old veterans to climb to higher floors.  The GAR was a powerful political force, numbering 400,000 as late as 1890, and a considerable portion of the Federal budget was devoted to veteran's benefits.

But only in the North.  In Marietta, the town had been devastated, and the people impoverished.  The wooden grave markers were scavenged for firewood, or the names weathered to invisibility.  The neglect is palpable to this very day, even on Memorial Day weekend (when these photographs were taken).  This is only one small corner of the occupied South, and there are a million stories from that day.  But none of them were taught when I was a lad, and I'd be surprised if they're taught now.  Generations have grown up without a clue to the motivations of a good portion of their country.

* Actually, there's one lone Confederate, buried there by mistake.