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The South in Defeat, 1865
On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia (see Surrender at Appomattox, 1865). By the end of the month the remaining Confederate armies had followed suit. After four blood-letting years, the War Between the States was over.
Union troops quickly moved to occupy the former Confederate States and install military rule until civilian governments could be organized for the states. The first step on the pathway to re-integration with the Union for the former Confederacy was for its citizens to take an oath of allegiance to the Union and to pledge to abide by President Lincolnís Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves. A former Confederate State would be eligible for re-integration once ten percent of its population had made this pledge.
"God in His good providence has not seen fit to grant us our prayer and hearts desires."
Henry William Revenal was a plantation owner living near Aiken, South Carolina. He left us a diary of his day-today activities that provides insight into conditions in the South at the close of the war. We join his story as Yankee occupation of South Carolina is well under way:
We are beginning life again in our financial affairs. Many Negroes in Aiken hearing they were free in Augusta have gone over to hear from the Yankees the truth. Some are returning disappointed [sic]....
Most that we hear is mere rumor. The press is now muzzled - and all news comes to us through the sieve of Yankee eyes. We are bound hand and foot . . . we can now see the naked truth that our great struggle for independence and the right of self government is lost. I need not enumerate here the reasons by which we justified our efforts at independance.
God in His good providence has not seen fit to grant us our prayer and hearts desires. If it is his will that we are not to be a nation, but only a part of the United States again, so be it. I acquiesce in this decision and accept it as His act.
As Gen. Gillmore's order, based upon Chief Justice Chase's opinion, announces the freedom of the Negroes there is no further room to doubt that it is the settled policy of the country. I have today formally announced to my Negroes the fact, and made such arrangements with each as the new relation rendered necessary. Those whose whole time we need, get at present clothes and food, house rent and medical attendance. The others work for themselves giving me a portion of their time on the farm in lieu of house rent. Old Amelia and her two grandchildren, I will spare the mockery of offering freedom to. I must support them as long as I have anything to give.
For the present they will remain, but in course of time we must part, as I cannot afford to keep so many, and they cannot afford to hire for what I could give them. As they have always been faithful and attached to us, and have been raised as family servants, and have all of them been in our family for several generations, there is a feeling towards them somewhat like that of a father who is about to send out his children on the world to make their way through life.
Those who have brought the present change of relation upon us are ignorant of these ties. They have charged us with cruelty. They call us, man stealers, robbers, tyrants. The indignant denial of these charges and the ill feelings engendered during 30 years of angry controversy, have culminated at length in the four years war which has now ended. It has pleased God that we should fail in our efforts for independence and with the loss of independence, we return to the Union under the dominion of the abolition sentiment.
The experiment is now to be tried. The Negro is not only to be emancipated, but is to become a citizen with all the right and privileges! It produces a financial, political and social revolution at the South, fearful to contemplate in its ultimate effects. Whatever the result may be, let it be known and remembered that neither the Negro slave nor his master is responsible. It has been done by those who having political power, are determined to carry into practice the sentimental philanthropy they have so long and angrily advocated. Now that is fixed. I pray God for the great issues at stake, that he may bless the effort and make it successful - make it a blessing and not a curse to the poor Negro."
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