What was the political climate in 1865?

[ColonelAngus]

Were things bad?

I have no way of knowing, because I was not even born yet.

Anyone on USMB recall 1865?

Some 2020 Biden voters do. MULTIPLE CIVIL WAR VETS GOT MAIL IN BALLOTS.

 

[ColonelAngus]

No one knows.

Seems like it was similar to CURRENT EVENTS…..though it was 160 years ago.

 

[XponentialChaos]

Hey westwall, what was the political climate like back then?

 

[Meister]

No one knows.

Seems like it was similar to CURRENT EVENTS…..though it was 160 years ago.

IM2 would know, he knows everything.

 

[ColonelAngus]

IM2 would know, he knows everything.

Probably a teenager at the time

 

[1srelluc]

They were "rough" to say the least....Yankee occupying troops from officers, down to the rank and file were caught-up in so much grift and drunkenness they were mostly ineffective.

Even their "hold" on towns was tenuous at best. Lots of black troops were used and many were beaten/killed if they left the confines of the towns with little if any repercussions.

The substandard white officers did not care about them and due to poor rations and lack of pay (that money was stolen too) desertion was rife as they sought jobs in the countryside. They would just get shed of their uniforms, don civilian clothes that they had stolen and walk away.

It was so bad that they even drank/gambled away monies slated for the disinterment and reinterment of dead Yankees across the many Virginia battlefields. What was not drank/gambled away was simply stolen by the officers.

For every national cemetery in a Southern State you see with dead Yankees in them you can bet that at least 4X as many were never recovered....And that is a conservative estimate.

In Virginia farmers were to be paid $10.00 a head for remains found on their lands and returned to the Yankees but since the grifted the money away farmers just started piling the remains/equipment along rock walls, fences, and such of their farm fields.

When metal detecting in Virginia you learn real quick to hunt along rock fences where there was any fighting. I've found a bunch of stuff (mostly Yankee) like that.

 

[westwall]

Hey westwall, what was the political climate like back then?

Don't remember, I was drinking pretty heavy at the time............

 

[ColonelAngus]

I wonder how protests spread in 1865.

What was the Tik Tok of 1865?

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

They were "rough" to say the least....Yankee occupying troops from officers, down to the rank and file were caught-up in so much grift and drunkenness they were mostly ineffective.

Even their "hold" on towns was tenuous at best. Lots of black troops were used and many were beaten/killed if they left the confines of the towns with little if any repercussions.

The substandard white officers did not care about them and due to poor rations and lack of pay (that money was stolen too) desertion was rife as they sought jobs in the countryside. They would just get shed of their uniforms, don civilian clothes that they had stolen and walk away.

It was so bad that they even drank/gambled away monies slated for the disinterment and reinterment of dead Yankees across the many Virginia battlefields. What was not drank/gambled away was simply stolen by the officers.

For every national cemetery in a Southern State you see with dead Yankees in them you can bet that at least 4X as many were never recovered....And that is a conservative estimate.

In Virginia farmers were to be paid $10.00 a head for remains found on their lands and returned to the Yankees but since the grifted the money away farmers just started piling the remains/equipment along rock walls, fences, and such of their farm fields.

When metal detecting in Virginia you learn real quick to hunt along rock fences where there was any fighting. I've found a bunch of stuff (mostly Yankee) like that.

We've Been Going Through the Second Reconstruction Since the 1960s

 

[1srelluc]

We've Been Going Through the Second Reconstruction Since the 1960s

I guess a case could be made that all .gov officials act as a occupying force as many have the grift down pat.

The difference is they now have huge population centers to run it all out of.....The lack of repercussions for their actions is certainly in place.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

..The lack of repercussions for their actions is certainly in place.

Magic-Carpet Baggers, Skating Scalawags

Which proves that Southern resistance is the reason the First Reconstruction only lasted 11 years.

What I can't understand, as shown in Gore Vidal's novel 1876, is why the South made a deal to get the Republican elected even though the Democrats would have ended it without a deal.