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Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War
"An arresting piece of popular history."
--Sean Wilentz, The New York Times Book Review
Nicholas Lemann opens this extraordinary book with a riveting account of the horrific events of Easter 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana, where a white militia of Confederate veterans-turned-vigilantes attacked the black community there and massacred hundreds of people in a gruesome killing spree.
This began an insurgency that changed the course of American history: for the next few years white Southern Democrats waged a campaign of political terrorism aiming to overturn the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and challenge President Grant's support for the emergent structures of black political power.
Redemption is the first book to describe in uncompromising detail this organized racial violence, which reached its apogee in Mississippi in 1875.
--Sean Wilentz, The New York Times Book Review
Nicholas Lemann opens this extraordinary book with a riveting account of the horrific events of Easter 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana, where a white militia of Confederate veterans-turned-vigilantes attacked the black community there and massacred hundreds of people in a gruesome killing spree.
This began an insurgency that changed the course of American history: for the next few years white Southern Democrats waged a campaign of political terrorism aiming to overturn the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and challenge President Grant's support for the emergent structures of black political power.
Redemption is the first book to describe in uncompromising detail this organized racial violence, which reached its apogee in Mississippi in 1875.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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July 14, 2019
Reading this book is like taking bitter medicine. It's good for you, but not pleasant. I had the same feeling at the beginning of this book as when I began
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
; which was, "This isn't not going to end well."
The book is about the post Civil War reconstruction era. This is a dark chapter of American history, but not for the reasons I was taught in school. I don't remember much of the specific facts that I was taught, but I remember picking up the impression that "scalawag" and "carpetbagger" were bad people. This book provides an alternative view that if being a bad person is measured by the numbers of people murdered, terrorized, and tortured, then the white opponents of the reconstructionists were by far guilty of the worst behavior.
The book follows the life of Adelbert Ames who was appointed provisional governor of postwar Mississippi, was elected senator in 1870 and governor in 1873. He worked hard to protect the freedmen but failed, largely because the federal government was weary of garrisoning federal soldiers in the South and failed to provide necessary enforcement of law and order. The white Southerners soon learned that they could get away with murder, provided the violence was dispersed enough to not appear to be open insurrection. As time passed this relationship of terror was codified into the infamous "Jim Crow Laws."
Then ironically, recorded history got turned upside down, and the Southern whites became the heros of the era. Many historians began to repeat many of the myths voiced by the white Southerners as fact. The book's title refers to the popular version of Reconstruction in which valiant Southern whites "redeemed" their states from corrupt carpetbaggers and ignorant freedmen. So a case can be made that in actual practice, the South won the Civil War and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were little more than pieces of paper for about 100 years following the Civil War.
The book is about the post Civil War reconstruction era. This is a dark chapter of American history, but not for the reasons I was taught in school. I don't remember much of the specific facts that I was taught, but I remember picking up the impression that "scalawag" and "carpetbagger" were bad people. This book provides an alternative view that if being a bad person is measured by the numbers of people murdered, terrorized, and tortured, then the white opponents of the reconstructionists were by far guilty of the worst behavior.
The book follows the life of Adelbert Ames who was appointed provisional governor of postwar Mississippi, was elected senator in 1870 and governor in 1873. He worked hard to protect the freedmen but failed, largely because the federal government was weary of garrisoning federal soldiers in the South and failed to provide necessary enforcement of law and order. The white Southerners soon learned that they could get away with murder, provided the violence was dispersed enough to not appear to be open insurrection. As time passed this relationship of terror was codified into the infamous "Jim Crow Laws."
Then ironically, recorded history got turned upside down, and the Southern whites became the heros of the era. Many historians began to repeat many of the myths voiced by the white Southerners as fact. The book's title refers to the popular version of Reconstruction in which valiant Southern whites "redeemed" their states from corrupt carpetbaggers and ignorant freedmen. So a case can be made that in actual practice, the South won the Civil War and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were little more than pieces of paper for about 100 years following the Civil War.
August 28, 2023
There can be no doubt about it: Confederate forces continued to fight a guerilla war against African Americas and their supporters after the Civil War in the Southern United States. There can also be no question as to the commitment of the government to put down such forces. That Jim Crow laws tried to solidify the 'gains' made by these reactionary forces is firmly connected and documented in this book. Should be read by anyone who is still having trouble defining 'domestic terrorism'. Highest recommendation.
July 5, 2007
I was drawn to this primarily because it's about my great-great-grandfather Adelbert Ames and his tenure as governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction; he had been the subject of a short, unfavorable mention in Profiles in Courage, which the family tried to correct without success, and Lemann, I think, was trying to do what Kennedy wouldn't. (Kennedy wrote favorably about L.Q.C. Lamar, a white Democratic Mississippi politician of the 1870s and '80s who was instrumental in ending Reconstruction; I guess Kennedy thought that would win him votes in the South. I'd hate to think he sincerely thought Lamar was a wonderful fellow.)
At any rate, there was much to learn here about Adelbert Ames, who emerges as well-meaning if someone naive in his attempts to advance the cause of black rights against a white population that had no compunction about resorting to violence. (The whites constantly conjured up the specter of marauding bands of blacks to justify violence; Lemann makes a good case that this was pure invention. For one thing, those supposed marauding bands never managed to harm any of the whites on their raids.) Ames, it's probably fair to say, overestimated the goodwill of the Democrats in assuming that all sides really wanted to avoid violence. He does seem to have genuinely believed in the rightness of what he was doing (the carpetbagger just-in-it-for-money label never really fit), and he was victimized to a significant degree by a lack of political will in Washington to keep Reconstruction going. I hadn't realized exactly how unpopular Reconstruction had become even outside the South by the mid-1870s.
A very narrowly focused, but still fascinating, account of the end of Reconstruction, for those who don't care about the family connection.
At any rate, there was much to learn here about Adelbert Ames, who emerges as well-meaning if someone naive in his attempts to advance the cause of black rights against a white population that had no compunction about resorting to violence. (The whites constantly conjured up the specter of marauding bands of blacks to justify violence; Lemann makes a good case that this was pure invention. For one thing, those supposed marauding bands never managed to harm any of the whites on their raids.) Ames, it's probably fair to say, overestimated the goodwill of the Democrats in assuming that all sides really wanted to avoid violence. He does seem to have genuinely believed in the rightness of what he was doing (the carpetbagger just-in-it-for-money label never really fit), and he was victimized to a significant degree by a lack of political will in Washington to keep Reconstruction going. I hadn't realized exactly how unpopular Reconstruction had become even outside the South by the mid-1870s.
A very narrowly focused, but still fascinating, account of the end of Reconstruction, for those who don't care about the family connection.
March 13, 2025
The End Of Reconstruction
In order to place Nicholas Lemann's fine book "Redemption: the Last Battle of the Civil War" in context, a bit of background is necessary. With the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the United States faced the daunting tasks of reintegrating the defeated South into the Union and providing for the rights of the African Americans freed from slavery. The period from 1865 -- 1876 is generally described as the "Reconstruction" era, and it includes, broadly, three separate efforts at Reconstruction. The first, Presidential Reconstruction, involved Andrew Johnson's efforts to admit the Southern states on easy terms under its former leaders, with all the oppression of African Americans that this implied. Under the second effort, Congressional Reconstruction, the military governed the defeated South, as Congress attempted as well to impeach Johnson for obstructing its policy. Congress provided for the re-admimission of the Southern States to the Union upon the adoption of Constitutions that provided African American men as well as white men the right to vote. Each of the Confederate States ultimately enacted a Congressionally-approved constitution and was readmitted to the Union, with an ever-diminishing role for Federal troops. The Reconstruction Era came to an end in 1876 with the disputed election of Rutherford B Hayes to the Presidency and the removal of the last of the Federal troops from the Southern States.
Now to Lemann's study. Lemann is the dean of the school of Journalism at Columbia University and the author of a number of earlier books, including, most importantly, "The Promised Land: the Great Black Migration and How it Changed America", the story of how African Americans migrated North in the mid-twentieth Century. His book, "Redemption" takes only a short glance at the early stages of Reconstruction. Its focus is on the final years of Reconstruction, 1873 -- 1875, in two States, Louisiana and Mississippi, and how events in these States set the stage for the end of Reconstruction and the ultimate "redemption" of the South through the reinstitution of white supremacy and Jim Crow.
The failed hero of Lemann's account is Adelbert Ames (1835 -- 1933). Ames served as a Union general in almost all the important battles of the Army of the Potomac, including Gettysburg. Following the war, he was appointed Military governor of Mississippi where he oversaw the adoption of Mississippi's constitution and its readmission to the Union. He married the daughter of another important Union General, Ben Butler, served as one of the first two senators of the readmitted State of Mississippi and became the Governor of Mississippi where he tried, under the standards prevailing at the time, to administer the State with honesty and probity and to protect the civil rights of the freed African Americans.
Ames was opposed by the organized Democratic party in Mississippi. More importantly, he was opposed by a group of terrorist, paramilitary organizations known as White Liners. The White Liners sought to intimidate African Americans from voting and exercising their rights through harassment, terror, and murder. Lemann shows in detail how this occurred in Louisiana and Mississippi with organized violence in both states particularly in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Ames looked to President Grant's administration for assistance in meeting the violence. Grant responded favorably at first. But under pressure from domestic politics and from advisors increasingly opposed to an aggressive stance on Reconstruction, Grant backed down and did not support Ames with the necessary military help. As a result, largely through terror and force, Republican government in Mississippi came to an end, Ames resigned under threat of impeachment from the new Democratic legislature, and the "Mississippi plan" of terror and white supremacy was adopted throughout the South. Lemann portrays the end of Reconstruction as a result both of White Liner terror tactics and of a failure of will and war-weariness in the North.
The Reconstruction Era remains among the most controversial in American history and its historiography likewise has been difficult. As Lemann points out, historians have been changing their view of Reconstruction from one critical of the endeavor and largely sympathetic to the defeated South and to efforts to promote an peaceful reunion of North and South to a view praising the Reconstruction effort and critical of the failure to carry it through and to protect the rights of African Americans. W.E.B. DuBois and, more recently, Eric Foner, are the scholars most responsible for the success of this later view of the Reconstruction period.
As with most difficult and broad questions, the last word on Reconstruction and its history has not yet been said. But Lemann tells the story of the little-known final days of Reconstruction in Mississippi and Louisiana well, with ample documentation, and with telling effect. Those reading this book will benefit from some prior background in Civil War history and in the Reconstruction Era. Lemann poignantly tells the story of our country's "unfinished business" resulting from the failure of Reconstruction.
Robin Friedman
In order to place Nicholas Lemann's fine book "Redemption: the Last Battle of the Civil War" in context, a bit of background is necessary. With the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the United States faced the daunting tasks of reintegrating the defeated South into the Union and providing for the rights of the African Americans freed from slavery. The period from 1865 -- 1876 is generally described as the "Reconstruction" era, and it includes, broadly, three separate efforts at Reconstruction. The first, Presidential Reconstruction, involved Andrew Johnson's efforts to admit the Southern states on easy terms under its former leaders, with all the oppression of African Americans that this implied. Under the second effort, Congressional Reconstruction, the military governed the defeated South, as Congress attempted as well to impeach Johnson for obstructing its policy. Congress provided for the re-admimission of the Southern States to the Union upon the adoption of Constitutions that provided African American men as well as white men the right to vote. Each of the Confederate States ultimately enacted a Congressionally-approved constitution and was readmitted to the Union, with an ever-diminishing role for Federal troops. The Reconstruction Era came to an end in 1876 with the disputed election of Rutherford B Hayes to the Presidency and the removal of the last of the Federal troops from the Southern States.
Now to Lemann's study. Lemann is the dean of the school of Journalism at Columbia University and the author of a number of earlier books, including, most importantly, "The Promised Land: the Great Black Migration and How it Changed America", the story of how African Americans migrated North in the mid-twentieth Century. His book, "Redemption" takes only a short glance at the early stages of Reconstruction. Its focus is on the final years of Reconstruction, 1873 -- 1875, in two States, Louisiana and Mississippi, and how events in these States set the stage for the end of Reconstruction and the ultimate "redemption" of the South through the reinstitution of white supremacy and Jim Crow.
The failed hero of Lemann's account is Adelbert Ames (1835 -- 1933). Ames served as a Union general in almost all the important battles of the Army of the Potomac, including Gettysburg. Following the war, he was appointed Military governor of Mississippi where he oversaw the adoption of Mississippi's constitution and its readmission to the Union. He married the daughter of another important Union General, Ben Butler, served as one of the first two senators of the readmitted State of Mississippi and became the Governor of Mississippi where he tried, under the standards prevailing at the time, to administer the State with honesty and probity and to protect the civil rights of the freed African Americans.
Ames was opposed by the organized Democratic party in Mississippi. More importantly, he was opposed by a group of terrorist, paramilitary organizations known as White Liners. The White Liners sought to intimidate African Americans from voting and exercising their rights through harassment, terror, and murder. Lemann shows in detail how this occurred in Louisiana and Mississippi with organized violence in both states particularly in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Ames looked to President Grant's administration for assistance in meeting the violence. Grant responded favorably at first. But under pressure from domestic politics and from advisors increasingly opposed to an aggressive stance on Reconstruction, Grant backed down and did not support Ames with the necessary military help. As a result, largely through terror and force, Republican government in Mississippi came to an end, Ames resigned under threat of impeachment from the new Democratic legislature, and the "Mississippi plan" of terror and white supremacy was adopted throughout the South. Lemann portrays the end of Reconstruction as a result both of White Liner terror tactics and of a failure of will and war-weariness in the North.
The Reconstruction Era remains among the most controversial in American history and its historiography likewise has been difficult. As Lemann points out, historians have been changing their view of Reconstruction from one critical of the endeavor and largely sympathetic to the defeated South and to efforts to promote an peaceful reunion of North and South to a view praising the Reconstruction effort and critical of the failure to carry it through and to protect the rights of African Americans. W.E.B. DuBois and, more recently, Eric Foner, are the scholars most responsible for the success of this later view of the Reconstruction period.
As with most difficult and broad questions, the last word on Reconstruction and its history has not yet been said. But Lemann tells the story of the little-known final days of Reconstruction in Mississippi and Louisiana well, with ample documentation, and with telling effect. Those reading this book will benefit from some prior background in Civil War history and in the Reconstruction Era. Lemann poignantly tells the story of our country's "unfinished business" resulting from the failure of Reconstruction.
Robin Friedman
September 21, 2014
The standard history of the Civil War is that America fought a bloody war to abolish slavery and the South lost.
As Nicholas Lemann makes so clear in this compelling book, it was hardly that simple. Ten years after the end of the war, with Ulysses Grant in the Oval Office, the fate of political and social freedom for southern blacks was still very much undecided, and in this sad story, Lemann shows how the battle for full rights was essentially lost for decades because of the events of this period.
He focuses particularly on Mississippi, which like many other states in the Reconstruction South, had white northerners as political leaders alongside newly enfranchised blacks. He puts a particular focus on Adelbert Ames, a former Union general who became governor of the state and married Blanche Butler, the daughter of an influential Massachusetts congressman.
In the elections of 1875 and 1876, armed bands of former Confederate soldiers waged an outright reign of terrorism in deep southern states, disrupting Republican political rallies, picking fights with blacks in attendance and then using that as an excuse to roam the countryside and kill innocent black families with impunity.
This campaign, carried out by groups known as the White Line, caused blacks to avoid the voting booth and put the Democrats back in power, leading in just a few years to the Jim Crow laws that separated blacks and whites in public life for decades to come.
It also led white historians of the early 1900s to create a narrative in which Reconstruction failed because of rapacious, corrupt white Northerners looting the postwar South. In addition, these historians blatantly put forth the idea that blacks would never be the moral or intellectual equals of whites and thus the idea of giving them full political power was a folly from the start.
Lemann has used the work of later historians and his own exacting research to show how untrue that narrative was, and how the end of Reconstruction was quite bluntly due to murderous terrorism by southern whites and Grant's unwillingness to send federal troops in to ensure fair and open voting.
Adelbert Ames, ambitious and energetic, was put in the position of governing a state he had no control over. With no real help from federal troops and fearing that formation of an active black state militia would lead to even greater slaughter of innocent civilians, he eventually lost his position, moved north and got out of politics.
This is a powerful, disturbing book about a time in American history when the values that we went to a bloody war over were abandoned under the sway of a general attitude in North and South of black inferiority and not valuing their lives as much as those of whites.
April 15, 2020
If one should wonder why the US can see "fledgling democracies" in the likes of death squad regimes of Central America, look no farther than this historic precedent. Mississippi was the domestic El Salvador of the 1870s, with a complacent American public shrugging it off with "that's just how those people are down there." A sense of responsibility was blown off for a number of reasons: shared racism, a postwar rush to get back to "business as usual," and cultural remoteness. Any commitments the US made to the freemen were, as usual, forgotten once the expediency of crisis had passed.
Well-meaning, well-connected New England Yankee turned Reconstruction governor, Adelbert Ames, sat astride this hopeless hornet's nest; trapped between those who wanted him dead and those who did not want to get involved. In truth the only thing that could have stopped the grass-roots "Mississippi Plan" was the intervention of Federal boots on the ground and the possibility of another shooting war. In this event we see also, perhaps, the origin of those color-coded "revolutions" now so popular in toppling "failed regimes" like Ames'. This particular "failure" was given a substantial push by intimidation and terror. But he who controls the interpretation of the past controls the future, as Orwell said; at least for the following century in America.
While Lemann's book is detailed for its small size, and he's done some prodigious research, there are a couple of points I'll take issue with. He writes on p. 186: "As Reconstruction ended, modern industrial America began." To the contrary, post-war development was but a continuation of what was already well underway by the 1850s; otherwise there wouldn't have been a civil war. (One of the pitfalls of journalists as social historians.) The picture of Republican/carpetbagger corruption as being no worse than overall Gilded Age standards from any party is true, and if anything is in Ames' favor. But the passion for his daughter Blanche to rehabilitate his memory - even tussling with JFK - has more the sign of a wealthy woman from a prominent family trying to clear paternal honor than a crusading social justice warrior.
Even so, a worthy reconstruction of a time and place that even now most Americans prefer to forget.
Well-meaning, well-connected New England Yankee turned Reconstruction governor, Adelbert Ames, sat astride this hopeless hornet's nest; trapped between those who wanted him dead and those who did not want to get involved. In truth the only thing that could have stopped the grass-roots "Mississippi Plan" was the intervention of Federal boots on the ground and the possibility of another shooting war. In this event we see also, perhaps, the origin of those color-coded "revolutions" now so popular in toppling "failed regimes" like Ames'. This particular "failure" was given a substantial push by intimidation and terror. But he who controls the interpretation of the past controls the future, as Orwell said; at least for the following century in America.
While Lemann's book is detailed for its small size, and he's done some prodigious research, there are a couple of points I'll take issue with. He writes on p. 186: "As Reconstruction ended, modern industrial America began." To the contrary, post-war development was but a continuation of what was already well underway by the 1850s; otherwise there wouldn't have been a civil war. (One of the pitfalls of journalists as social historians.) The picture of Republican/carpetbagger corruption as being no worse than overall Gilded Age standards from any party is true, and if anything is in Ames' favor. But the passion for his daughter Blanche to rehabilitate his memory - even tussling with JFK - has more the sign of a wealthy woman from a prominent family trying to clear paternal honor than a crusading social justice warrior.
Even so, a worthy reconstruction of a time and place that even now most Americans prefer to forget.
July 27, 2009
After the Civil War the Constitution was amended to establish equal political and civil rights for former slaves, and for the first few year blacks had some real political power. For example in Mississippi 64 of 152 state legislators were black in 1873. Mississippi voters had elected a man sympathetic to Reconstruction as governor: Adelbert Ames, a former Union General recently arrived from Maine. However, many whites didn’t like the new arrangements, and with the Union Army largely withdrawn and disbanded, the disgruntled whites took matters into their own hands.
This is the setting of Nicholas Lemann’s book and he documents in relentless detail what it meant for southern whites to “take matters into their own hands”. Or as they put it, “redeem” themselves. Drawing on thousands of pages of congressional investigations and the correspondence between Governor Ames and his wife Blanche, Lemann draws a picture of an era dominated by terrorist groups. In episode after episode white vigilantes intimidate and murder frequently unarmed blacks. Elected county officials are chased out of office; voters intimidated. Overwhelmed state officials beg for federal troops, but none are forthcoming. Sometimes, after the attacks, relatives of the victims would be so intimidated they would be afraid to claim the bodies; turkey vultures and wild dogs ate them. President Grant, even though he condemned the “fraud and violence” that he said would “scarcely be accredited to savages much less to a civilized Christian people” sent no help.
This, of course, isn’t the story the redeemers told themselves. Lemann spends the last 20 pages of the book describing the creation and evolution of the Redemption Myth that eventually bloomed into a popularly accepted view of history. Southerners said they were merely struggling against “cynical carpetbaggers and scalawags and their radical allies in Washington”. They faced the constant threat of “Negro uprisings bent on pillage and rape”. They were fully justified in seizing power from the “horrors of Negro rule”. Popular novels, plays, movies, even scholarly work eventually justified this white supremacist world-view. As John Burgess founder and dean of the political science faculty at Columbia University put it in 1902: “the North is learning every day that there are vast differences in political capacity between the races… it is the white man’s mission and duty to hold the reins of power.”
A sad tale, but an eye-opening one.
This is the setting of Nicholas Lemann’s book and he documents in relentless detail what it meant for southern whites to “take matters into their own hands”. Or as they put it, “redeem” themselves. Drawing on thousands of pages of congressional investigations and the correspondence between Governor Ames and his wife Blanche, Lemann draws a picture of an era dominated by terrorist groups. In episode after episode white vigilantes intimidate and murder frequently unarmed blacks. Elected county officials are chased out of office; voters intimidated. Overwhelmed state officials beg for federal troops, but none are forthcoming. Sometimes, after the attacks, relatives of the victims would be so intimidated they would be afraid to claim the bodies; turkey vultures and wild dogs ate them. President Grant, even though he condemned the “fraud and violence” that he said would “scarcely be accredited to savages much less to a civilized Christian people” sent no help.
This, of course, isn’t the story the redeemers told themselves. Lemann spends the last 20 pages of the book describing the creation and evolution of the Redemption Myth that eventually bloomed into a popularly accepted view of history. Southerners said they were merely struggling against “cynical carpetbaggers and scalawags and their radical allies in Washington”. They faced the constant threat of “Negro uprisings bent on pillage and rape”. They were fully justified in seizing power from the “horrors of Negro rule”. Popular novels, plays, movies, even scholarly work eventually justified this white supremacist world-view. As John Burgess founder and dean of the political science faculty at Columbia University put it in 1902: “the North is learning every day that there are vast differences in political capacity between the races… it is the white man’s mission and duty to hold the reins of power.”
A sad tale, but an eye-opening one.
July 5, 2015
The continued effort by many to bring the Confederate banner down from government buildings and grounds, especially in my home state of South Carolina, as well as strident assertions by bigots and white supremacists that "their" history is being forgotten, made reading this book all the more intense and angering than it might have been at another time. While this country struggles against terrorism throughout the world, it is good and important to remember we had our own domestic terrorists who wiped out thousands of innocent lives and forced generations into continued poverty and misery (and a life not much different from slavery itself) upon a large segment of our population, by denying them rights that had been earned during the Civil War. Yes, I'm talking about the White Leagues and White Riders and all manner of lynch mobs that fabricated stories based on the fears of black rule and behavior and used them as pretext to perpetuate wholesale murder just short of genocide (not to mention all manner of intimidation and injury). Right here at home. Lemann, a journalist who writes history books, and good ones at that, focuses mostly on Louisiana and Mississippi during the waning years of Reconstruction. He also looks at how historians erroneously presented the story into the 1950s. This is not a book that any honest reader can stomach without feeling great anger toward Southern Democrats of the day, nor gaining greater understanding and sympathy for the plight of a population just out of slavery and fighting for its small portion of the pie. This is a book that highschoolers, especially in the South, should be made to read. I can just see them looking at me and saying, "What? This couldn't happen here." Oh, but it did. An important addition to African American history, and a reminder that there is still much to do to make this country what it should truly be.
May 7, 2013
It is very important for us to be aware of this period of history. First part tells the story of the Redemption as the story of General/Senator/Governor Ames. It is a story that needs to be told but seems to drag a bit. Nice units on historiography of the era.
July 14, 2019
This book will enrich understanding of what actually went down at the end of reconstruction instead of adhering to the shallow scalawag and carpetbagger terms. This will add depth to your understanding and you will be able to give an emotionally compelling account that will resonate and effectively connect the past to the present. I am glad I read this book.
January 22, 2020
Should be required reading before anyone posts their hot take on the rise of the white supremacy movement in the past few years.
January 5, 2016
In “Redemption”, Nicholas Lemann explores the violent, terroristic tactics southern whites used to reestablish white supremacy in the conquered southern states in the aftermath of the Civil War. This book was difficult to read; not because it was flawed in any way, but because when the story it tells isn’t profoundly sad, it is teeth grindingly upsetting. It is a story of unambiguous good battling with self-indulgent, leering evil, and losing. The story is made all the more sickeningly poignant by the fact that the story’s outcome….subjugated, disenfranchised former slaves compelled through violence for almost an entire Jim Crow century to live marginalized lives under a regime of smug, white supremacist terror…..was not inevitable – had different decisions been made at different critical junctures, the entire course of American history might have been different.
The story’s arc begins with the 1873 massacre in Colfax Louisiana, during which a black democratically elected local government was violently overthrown by a gang of local white thugs. Although almost a hundred black militiamen were killed – either burned alive in the courthouse that was set on fire, or hunted down and executed afterwards – no murder charges were ever successfully prosecuted against the perpetrators. In fact, the prosecution of some of these thugs was the basis of the Supreme Court’s infamous Crookshank decision, which essentially neutered the protections of the 14th Amendment by insisting that responsibility for prosecuting criminals lies with State and not the Federal government – of course, since the States were specifically intent on not prosecuting the defendants for the murders they had committed, the result of the decision was to leave millions of black citizens at the mercy of state governments intent upon their disenfranchisement through violence, intimidation and terror.
The bulk of the story revolves around an escalation of Colfax-style violence and its resulting consequences that occurred in Mississippi between 1874 and 1876 under the administration of Republican governor, Adelbert Ames. Aimes, an idealistic northern Civil War general turned politician arrived in Mississippi intent on overseeing Reconstruction as a stepping stone to further political advancement. His plans for advancement were derailed, however, by the emergence of a campaign of violent political intimidation that emerged in Mississippi throughout his administration. The book chronicles the series of events throughout the state by which local thugs, working in silent cooperation of the Democratic party, again and again denied duly elected black politicians their seats in office, or otherwise disrupted Republican political meetings or intimidated voters on election days through violence. The result was that although strong black majorities desired Republican (and black) officeholders, terror tactics allowed Democrats to run the elections and regain political power.
What makes the book’s tale particularly maddening is the fact that it could have been prevented by the deployment of Federal troops to ensure orderly, terror-free elections. However, by 1975 the North had become weary of Reconstruction and wanted nothing to do with programs designed to ensure the rights of black people. As a result, President Grant withheld troop support, leaving Ames few options that didn’t involve a suicidal counterattack by black militias in order to try to establish and retain order.
This program of overt terror and covert Democratic (i.e. ex-confederate) Party support was quickly replicated by other states in the Deep South. In allowing this project to succeed by withholding Federal troop support, Grant effectively ceded political power back to the very Confederates against whom he had battled so effectively in the Civil War. The reassertion of the Democratic Party throughout the south essentially spelled the death knell of Reconstruction, and ushered in a white supremacist southern regime that oversaw the erection of Jim Crow laws designed to marginalize, humiliate and disenfranchise blacks in order to retain white social and political hegemony.
The books lesson is that it could have been different….our history could have been different. It just didn’t have to be this way….the South didn’t need to be what it became after the Civil War.
It’s an important, if depressing, read.
The story’s arc begins with the 1873 massacre in Colfax Louisiana, during which a black democratically elected local government was violently overthrown by a gang of local white thugs. Although almost a hundred black militiamen were killed – either burned alive in the courthouse that was set on fire, or hunted down and executed afterwards – no murder charges were ever successfully prosecuted against the perpetrators. In fact, the prosecution of some of these thugs was the basis of the Supreme Court’s infamous Crookshank decision, which essentially neutered the protections of the 14th Amendment by insisting that responsibility for prosecuting criminals lies with State and not the Federal government – of course, since the States were specifically intent on not prosecuting the defendants for the murders they had committed, the result of the decision was to leave millions of black citizens at the mercy of state governments intent upon their disenfranchisement through violence, intimidation and terror.
The bulk of the story revolves around an escalation of Colfax-style violence and its resulting consequences that occurred in Mississippi between 1874 and 1876 under the administration of Republican governor, Adelbert Ames. Aimes, an idealistic northern Civil War general turned politician arrived in Mississippi intent on overseeing Reconstruction as a stepping stone to further political advancement. His plans for advancement were derailed, however, by the emergence of a campaign of violent political intimidation that emerged in Mississippi throughout his administration. The book chronicles the series of events throughout the state by which local thugs, working in silent cooperation of the Democratic party, again and again denied duly elected black politicians their seats in office, or otherwise disrupted Republican political meetings or intimidated voters on election days through violence. The result was that although strong black majorities desired Republican (and black) officeholders, terror tactics allowed Democrats to run the elections and regain political power.
What makes the book’s tale particularly maddening is the fact that it could have been prevented by the deployment of Federal troops to ensure orderly, terror-free elections. However, by 1975 the North had become weary of Reconstruction and wanted nothing to do with programs designed to ensure the rights of black people. As a result, President Grant withheld troop support, leaving Ames few options that didn’t involve a suicidal counterattack by black militias in order to try to establish and retain order.
This program of overt terror and covert Democratic (i.e. ex-confederate) Party support was quickly replicated by other states in the Deep South. In allowing this project to succeed by withholding Federal troop support, Grant effectively ceded political power back to the very Confederates against whom he had battled so effectively in the Civil War. The reassertion of the Democratic Party throughout the south essentially spelled the death knell of Reconstruction, and ushered in a white supremacist southern regime that oversaw the erection of Jim Crow laws designed to marginalize, humiliate and disenfranchise blacks in order to retain white social and political hegemony.
The books lesson is that it could have been different….our history could have been different. It just didn’t have to be this way….the South didn’t need to be what it became after the Civil War.
It’s an important, if depressing, read.
November 1, 2007
I'm fascinated by the changes that occurred during Reconstruction. The government supported support of newly freed slaves and their political movements. Just as fascinating is the Republican decision to abandon them in favor of votes for Rutherford B. Hayes. This book has interesting material about the racial violence in Miss, LA, and other southern states...but, it is bogged down by bad writing and by the end you just want to throw it across the room.
February 7, 2013
In the days after the Civil War there was a concerted effort on the part of the white establishment to reinstate the supremacy of the whate race. It was done with violence, with trickery, with blatant racism. The results lasted up to the mid-20th century, making the Civil Rights movement necessary.
January 9, 2008
Great story, important history, but unfortunately not particularly well written or interesting in this telling.
November 27, 2021
Lemann makes a good case that the Civil War didn't end when Lee surrendered to Grant in April 1865 at Appomattox or any of the other dates usually cited by historians but instead, at the end of Reconstruction in 1877 when federal troops were ordered to stop protecting Black freedmen in the South from intimidation and attacks by white terrorists.
If you thought that the 620,000 plus men who died in the war gave their lives not only to save the Union but to end slavery and make Black people equal citizens, then this is a depressing read.
Through violence, trickery and whitewashing, former Confederate leaders succeeded in nullifying the results of the war. Reintroducing slavery in all but name, starting a few years after Appomattox, the Democratic Party and its secret militia wing -- not only the KKK but also groups that attacked Black people to discourage them from participating in politics including the White League, the White Line, the Knights of the White Camelia and the Regulators -- managed to nullify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
As terrorists challenged the authority of biracial governments of Southern states set up during Reconstruction and including Black officeholders, the federal government offered an inconsistent response. Sometimes, the president sent federal troops to put down terrorists, as Grant did with the KKK in South Carolina. But many other times, the White House declined requests by fellow Republicans serving as Reconstruction governors to help state authorities reestablish order in counties where white terrorists had ousted the duly elected biracial government or interfered with elections.
Ulysses S. Grant was president throughout most of the period covered by the book, and his performance comes off as mixed at best. Lemann documents several instances where Grant delayed responding to requests for federal troops or simply refused to send troops at all.
Tragically, one of these was the Colfax massacre in Grant Parish, Louisiana, a county named by local pro-Reconstruction activists for the president himself. There, on Easter Sunday in April 1873, local Black Republicans attempting to enforce the results of a recent election were besieged in the courthouse by a white mob. After the Blacks surrendered, more than 70 of their number plus nearby Black residents were slaughtered in cold blood by white militia allied with the Democratic Party.
Lemann does show how Grant was pressured to stop sending troops to the South as Northerners grew tired of intervening against their fellow whites on behalf of Black freedmen. Grant recognized that southern terrorism threatened to undo Grant's own victory in the Civil War. But he also had to play politics in 1870s America where even fellow Republicans knew that white voters were tired of Reconstruciton.
For example, two months after Grant refusing to send troops to restore order at the request of Mississippi's carpetbagger governor Adelbart Ames, Grant explained that he regretted his decision. Prior to the 1875 election, Ohio Republicans had asked Grant to not send troops to Mississippi. They claimed that Ohio voters were tired of Reconstruction and that Republicans would lose the governor's race if Grant intervened in Mississippi. "I should not have yielded. I believed at the time I was making a grave mistake. But as presented, it was duty on one side and party obligation on the other. Between the two I hestitated, but finally yielded to what I believed was my party obligation."
Grant was aware of the implications of failing to uphold federal authority in Mississippi. "It requires no prophet to foresee that the national government will soon be at a great disadvantage and that the results of the war of the rebellion will have been in a large manner lost...What you have just passed through in the state of Mississippi is only the beginning of what is sure to follow."
As it turned out, Grant's prediction was correct. Terrorists had been so successful at disenfranchising Black Mississippians by using sporadic violence and intimidation that appeared to Northerners to be uncoordinated and local so as to avoid attracting the full wrath of the federal government that the "Mississippi Plan" spread to other Southern states as a way for ex-Confederates to regain control. As a result, by 1877, so-called Redeemers had reconquered the South, in effect reversing the results of the war and instituting a reign of racial terror and oppression that would not be successfully challenged until the middle of the following century when the civil rights movement appeared in the 1950s.
This is a story too important to remain in the shadows and Lemann's book does an excellent job of telling it.
If you thought that the 620,000 plus men who died in the war gave their lives not only to save the Union but to end slavery and make Black people equal citizens, then this is a depressing read.
Through violence, trickery and whitewashing, former Confederate leaders succeeded in nullifying the results of the war. Reintroducing slavery in all but name, starting a few years after Appomattox, the Democratic Party and its secret militia wing -- not only the KKK but also groups that attacked Black people to discourage them from participating in politics including the White League, the White Line, the Knights of the White Camelia and the Regulators -- managed to nullify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
As terrorists challenged the authority of biracial governments of Southern states set up during Reconstruction and including Black officeholders, the federal government offered an inconsistent response. Sometimes, the president sent federal troops to put down terrorists, as Grant did with the KKK in South Carolina. But many other times, the White House declined requests by fellow Republicans serving as Reconstruction governors to help state authorities reestablish order in counties where white terrorists had ousted the duly elected biracial government or interfered with elections.
Ulysses S. Grant was president throughout most of the period covered by the book, and his performance comes off as mixed at best. Lemann documents several instances where Grant delayed responding to requests for federal troops or simply refused to send troops at all.
Tragically, one of these was the Colfax massacre in Grant Parish, Louisiana, a county named by local pro-Reconstruction activists for the president himself. There, on Easter Sunday in April 1873, local Black Republicans attempting to enforce the results of a recent election were besieged in the courthouse by a white mob. After the Blacks surrendered, more than 70 of their number plus nearby Black residents were slaughtered in cold blood by white militia allied with the Democratic Party.
Lemann does show how Grant was pressured to stop sending troops to the South as Northerners grew tired of intervening against their fellow whites on behalf of Black freedmen. Grant recognized that southern terrorism threatened to undo Grant's own victory in the Civil War. But he also had to play politics in 1870s America where even fellow Republicans knew that white voters were tired of Reconstruciton.
For example, two months after Grant refusing to send troops to restore order at the request of Mississippi's carpetbagger governor Adelbart Ames, Grant explained that he regretted his decision. Prior to the 1875 election, Ohio Republicans had asked Grant to not send troops to Mississippi. They claimed that Ohio voters were tired of Reconstruction and that Republicans would lose the governor's race if Grant intervened in Mississippi. "I should not have yielded. I believed at the time I was making a grave mistake. But as presented, it was duty on one side and party obligation on the other. Between the two I hestitated, but finally yielded to what I believed was my party obligation."
Grant was aware of the implications of failing to uphold federal authority in Mississippi. "It requires no prophet to foresee that the national government will soon be at a great disadvantage and that the results of the war of the rebellion will have been in a large manner lost...What you have just passed through in the state of Mississippi is only the beginning of what is sure to follow."
As it turned out, Grant's prediction was correct. Terrorists had been so successful at disenfranchising Black Mississippians by using sporadic violence and intimidation that appeared to Northerners to be uncoordinated and local so as to avoid attracting the full wrath of the federal government that the "Mississippi Plan" spread to other Southern states as a way for ex-Confederates to regain control. As a result, by 1877, so-called Redeemers had reconquered the South, in effect reversing the results of the war and instituting a reign of racial terror and oppression that would not be successfully challenged until the middle of the following century when the civil rights movement appeared in the 1950s.
This is a story too important to remain in the shadows and Lemann's book does an excellent job of telling it.
March 11, 2024
This book on an essential subject is nevertheless difficult to read--I think my three stars reflect the "depression factor" more than the quality of the book. This is a historical account of the violence and other means used by white Southerners to prevent the Freedmen (freed slaves) in the South after the Civil War from exercising their rights under the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution between the time the Civil War ended and the introduction of Jim Crow laws in the South (which were made possible by the success of these terroristic tactics). The book begins with the Colfax Massacre in Louisiana but focuses mainly on localities in Mississippi. In each of these places, mostly at the county level, a majority Black population elected Republican (then the "party of Lincoln") men, some Black and some white, to offices like county sheriff (who also collected taxes), treasurer, and the like. White men from Northern states (called "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" by white Southerners) also moved into these localities to help set up schools and otherwise help the Freedmen transition out of slavery, sometimes running for office in local elections themselves.
If the white members of the community--Democrats all, many of them former Confederate soldiers who had been allowed to keep their weapons when they were mustered out--didn't prevent the newly elected Black members of the community from taking office, they would lay siege to the county courthouse to drive the Black men out. The white men convinced themselves that the "Negroes" were organizing militias (even though they had few or no weapons), were corruptly keeping taxes for themselves, and were planning to burn, pillage, and rape their way through the white communities, although there was and is no evidence of this--but it fed a narrative that this extrajudicial terrorism was "self-defense." They would massacre the men who were trying to take or keep their offices in the courthouse, and then parties of white men would ride through the countryside, terrorizing and killing Black men (and sometimes white Republicans and women and children). The Republican governor of Mississippi, Adelbert Ames, as well as other white and Black citizens, begged the Grant Administration to send federal troops--or activate federal troops already in the South--to stop these murders and terrors, but Confederate sympathizers and white supremacists in the federal government stalled and otherwise prevented that help from materializing. By the presidential election of 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes was installed by politicians as President in return for the promise that federal troops would be withdrawn from the South, and so the white supremacists and and ex-Confederates knew that they could bring the "Mississippi Plan" to other Southern states and so prevent Black citizens from voting, exercising other rights, or just trying to live without the oppression of the about-to-be-codified Jim Crow South. (The laws codifying white supremacy made their ways north and west to other states, too). Nothing would be done about it until the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act were passed, and people are still trying to impose white supremacy in the United States in 2024. The dashed hopes and murder of the Freedmen described in this book are a shameful chapter in American history.
If the white members of the community--Democrats all, many of them former Confederate soldiers who had been allowed to keep their weapons when they were mustered out--didn't prevent the newly elected Black members of the community from taking office, they would lay siege to the county courthouse to drive the Black men out. The white men convinced themselves that the "Negroes" were organizing militias (even though they had few or no weapons), were corruptly keeping taxes for themselves, and were planning to burn, pillage, and rape their way through the white communities, although there was and is no evidence of this--but it fed a narrative that this extrajudicial terrorism was "self-defense." They would massacre the men who were trying to take or keep their offices in the courthouse, and then parties of white men would ride through the countryside, terrorizing and killing Black men (and sometimes white Republicans and women and children). The Republican governor of Mississippi, Adelbert Ames, as well as other white and Black citizens, begged the Grant Administration to send federal troops--or activate federal troops already in the South--to stop these murders and terrors, but Confederate sympathizers and white supremacists in the federal government stalled and otherwise prevented that help from materializing. By the presidential election of 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes was installed by politicians as President in return for the promise that federal troops would be withdrawn from the South, and so the white supremacists and and ex-Confederates knew that they could bring the "Mississippi Plan" to other Southern states and so prevent Black citizens from voting, exercising other rights, or just trying to live without the oppression of the about-to-be-codified Jim Crow South. (The laws codifying white supremacy made their ways north and west to other states, too). Nothing would be done about it until the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act were passed, and people are still trying to impose white supremacy in the United States in 2024. The dashed hopes and murder of the Freedmen described in this book are a shameful chapter in American history.
October 13, 2021
In a democracy, people who vote can get themselves treated decently; people who can't are powerless against others' malign impulses.
The above sentence is one of many that stood out to me in this book, even though I remember immediately wanting to supply it with a third clause: "people who deliberately prevent other citizens from voting have no place in a democracy and should be locked up or otherwise dealt with accordingly." Anyway, this book is mainly about that missing third group of people. The source material and research compiled at the end are impressive, and the book is a good reminder of why Reconstruction really failed: "a successful campaign of political terrorism in defiance of the U.S. government." The atrocities involved in that defiance as outlined in even this short book are myriad and outrageous and often involve the murder/massacre of people trying to be active American citizens. It was more than mere voter suppression--it was voter snuffing out--voter mayhem--and many of the incidents are just tough to read; that is, the reading is easy enough, but it's tough to understand how the same sort of thing could keep happening and how the authorities continued to allow it. Anyway, most general history books have the Civil War officially ending in April 1865 with Lee's surrender at Appomattox, or maybe with Buckner's surrender about a month later, but this book is a good reminder that neither of those were really in any way the end of things and that the barbarity and inhumanity continued for well more than a decade and beyond those dates, with the South feeling for the most part "redeemed" all the while. It is disturbing to note how some of the most outrageous race-based sentiments from 150 years ago can still be found today, but this book was also a good reminder how the Republican and Democratic parties have totally switched ideological positions from what they were when this book was set. A sentence like the following makes it pretty impossible not to compare the current U.S. political climate in 2021 with what it's clearly always been: "One function that politics serves is to embody, through parties, the sometimes startlingly different ways in which people can perceive the same situation." I enjoyed the love letters, diary entries, etc. between Adelbert and Blanche in the early chapters; Blanche, in particular, comes "alive" on the page, transcending time and acquitting herself well, it seemed to me. Have to admit being disappointed to learn late in the book that Ames' heirs never got satisfaction from JFK's slight to Adelbert in Profiles in Courage and that Kennedy himself never took the time to right the wrong he'd committed to history in raising up Lamar, who by all counts here was a two-faced asshole. Lemann's book at least helps set the record straight.
First line [of Prologue]:
"The Negroes had been in control of the village for three weeks now, and it was plain that something terrible was going to happen."
August 16, 2020
A well-written, readable account of a key, though horrific, time in the history of the American South. It covers massacres of Black Republicans (and a few white Republicans) as terrorizing white supremacist groups formed in Mississippi. The time is after Reconstruction, when the government enacted the 14th and 15th amendment and gave civil rights to African Americans, and before Jim Crow laws, when disenfranchisement and segregation spread throughout the south in less violent ways.
Lemann focuses on the political reasons and effects of this, rehabilitating the history of Mississippi governor Adelbert Ames, who had first been appointed provisional governor and then voted in as the elected governor (thanks to Black voters who comprised a majority of the Mississippi population) as their Republican governor. He worked closely and positively with his "black and tan" aka racially mixed legislature and Republican militias (mostly comprised of Black freedmen) to enforce civil rights. In the decade before 1875, schools for "colored children" were being staffed and constructed, biracial marriages between prominent community people took place, and newly freedmen became politically involved. To Ames' discredit, he spent a lot of time away from Mississippi because his wife spent most summers in Massachusetts and it's heartbreaking to read some of the letters attesting to terrorism and pleading for help mailed to the governor's mansion in the summer of 1875 while he was away. In the end, due to such terror and pressure, Republican voters were almost unanimously scared to come out and vote -- which led to the election of 1876 turning into a tie, and Grant becoming president only by agreeing to remove Federal troops and support for Reconstruction from the South.
Lemann does acknowledge other historical takes on why Reconstruction failed. There is overt racism: the belief that Blacks as a race were violent and stupid that made them incapable of participating in law and society completely, as portrayed in books like The Leopard's Spots and movies like Birth of a Nation. There is economics: such as W.E.B.DuBois' 1935 take that the people in charge cared more about money than about civil rights. It's quite true that there were economic challenges, and the finance forces were focused more on bringing railroad lines into the South, though DuBois also has a rather Marxist take (the proletariat of both races being manipulated by the rich.)
It is well-researched gives great insight to a part of US history I think few people know and is a good modern take on how Blacks were violently stripped of their civil rights and brutally killed in worse times in our nation and why and how that understandably led to a sense of mistrust and betrayal.
Lemann focuses on the political reasons and effects of this, rehabilitating the history of Mississippi governor Adelbert Ames, who had first been appointed provisional governor and then voted in as the elected governor (thanks to Black voters who comprised a majority of the Mississippi population) as their Republican governor. He worked closely and positively with his "black and tan" aka racially mixed legislature and Republican militias (mostly comprised of Black freedmen) to enforce civil rights. In the decade before 1875, schools for "colored children" were being staffed and constructed, biracial marriages between prominent community people took place, and newly freedmen became politically involved. To Ames' discredit, he spent a lot of time away from Mississippi because his wife spent most summers in Massachusetts and it's heartbreaking to read some of the letters attesting to terrorism and pleading for help mailed to the governor's mansion in the summer of 1875 while he was away. In the end, due to such terror and pressure, Republican voters were almost unanimously scared to come out and vote -- which led to the election of 1876 turning into a tie, and Grant becoming president only by agreeing to remove Federal troops and support for Reconstruction from the South.
Lemann does acknowledge other historical takes on why Reconstruction failed. There is overt racism: the belief that Blacks as a race were violent and stupid that made them incapable of participating in law and society completely, as portrayed in books like The Leopard's Spots and movies like Birth of a Nation. There is economics: such as W.E.B.DuBois' 1935 take that the people in charge cared more about money than about civil rights. It's quite true that there were economic challenges, and the finance forces were focused more on bringing railroad lines into the South, though DuBois also has a rather Marxist take (the proletariat of both races being manipulated by the rich.)
It is well-researched gives great insight to a part of US history I think few people know and is a good modern take on how Blacks were violently stripped of their civil rights and brutally killed in worse times in our nation and why and how that understandably led to a sense of mistrust and betrayal.
July 16, 2020
I first heard of this book thanks to an interest in Adelbert Ames. Throughout his long life, Ames had the habit of cropping up at important moments in history. One of those times was during the Mississippi Reconstruction, where he served first as military governor, then as US Senator, and then finally--just before as the southern whites reasserted their power--as the elected Governor.
Of course, this book isn't as much a story about Ames--whose actions and witness help tie the other stories together--as it is about the forces of white supremacy battling for--and succeeding in--regaining political power after the Civil War. This is a story about large-scale murder and intimidation by southern whites and about the failure of white northern liberals to follow up on the promise of emancipation.
In short, in the period of the 1870's the federal government was running out of steam when it came to Reconstruction. This lack of interest mixed with an appalling absence of political opened the door to many of the racist structures (some invisible and subconscious) that we still face today. Ames--elected primarily by black voters--begins with optimism, but over time he realizes his isolation. As he receives daily stories of intimation and brutality directed toward African-American citizens by the forerunners of many of today's white supremacist groups, his spirit flags. In the end he narrowly avoids impeachment. Many others paid a higher price.
To the reader: I really suggest staying for Chapter 5. Lehmann ends his book by examining the "Mississippi Plan" by which white Democrats used wealth and violence to suppress the black vote. He also takes a look at the many tools employed to alter the narrative, making heroes out of the villains (one Senator Lucius Lamar, in particular) and villains out of the radical Republicans. In this chapter you can see the the beginnings of a racist mind-game that played out in art and academia as much as in politics, perpetuating racist stereotypes and an inaccurate understanding of the history of race relations to this day, infecting JFK's "Profiles in Courage," among other things.
By taking a deep dive into this era, I feel I have a better understanding of what has followed. It is a important read.
Of course, this book isn't as much a story about Ames--whose actions and witness help tie the other stories together--as it is about the forces of white supremacy battling for--and succeeding in--regaining political power after the Civil War. This is a story about large-scale murder and intimidation by southern whites and about the failure of white northern liberals to follow up on the promise of emancipation.
In short, in the period of the 1870's the federal government was running out of steam when it came to Reconstruction. This lack of interest mixed with an appalling absence of political opened the door to many of the racist structures (some invisible and subconscious) that we still face today. Ames--elected primarily by black voters--begins with optimism, but over time he realizes his isolation. As he receives daily stories of intimation and brutality directed toward African-American citizens by the forerunners of many of today's white supremacist groups, his spirit flags. In the end he narrowly avoids impeachment. Many others paid a higher price.
To the reader: I really suggest staying for Chapter 5. Lehmann ends his book by examining the "Mississippi Plan" by which white Democrats used wealth and violence to suppress the black vote. He also takes a look at the many tools employed to alter the narrative, making heroes out of the villains (one Senator Lucius Lamar, in particular) and villains out of the radical Republicans. In this chapter you can see the the beginnings of a racist mind-game that played out in art and academia as much as in politics, perpetuating racist stereotypes and an inaccurate understanding of the history of race relations to this day, infecting JFK's "Profiles in Courage," among other things.
By taking a deep dive into this era, I feel I have a better understanding of what has followed. It is a important read.
February 25, 2021
After you read Redemption you'll understand that the "G" in MAGA stands for Vicksburg, Mississippi: 1875.
This book is relatively short. We get compelling portraits of Governor Adelbert Ames, an abolitionist and West Point graduate and Ames' wife, Blanche Butler. Then comes Mississippi's descent into full on terrorism. And then a surprising wrap-up that brings us all the way to Senator John F Kennedy writing Profiles of Courage, where JFK's chapter lionizing Lucius Lamar definitely takes the side of the Confederacy.
Most of the narrative is anchored in the copious records left behind by both the governor of Mississippi, Adelbert Ames, and his wife, Blanche Butler Ames. Before the book descends into all of the shootings, kidnappings, and torturings with fire, we get really fun descriptions and letter fragments from the newlyweds, writing back and forth to each other.
For many years, my questions have been: why did Reconstruction fail? Who "failed" it? Why didn't the black majorities of the deep south just do the democratic thing: choose better leaders?
This book really delivers on these questions. In fact, if you are in a hurry, just read pp. 70-80.
(This is a little off topic but early in the book, I was amazed to see the main character of Edith Wharton's House of Mirth had a real life conterpart. Lehmann shares with us a clipping about the governor's wife, Blanche, that shows her off as a real life Lily Bart. The newspaper wrote, in 1870, "Her beauty is the event of a century and deserves celebrity with that of the immortal women whose portraits the great painters have hung...so radiant and rosy it is, so dazzling with the sunshine of dimpled smiles, so dark and splendid are the eyes, so bright and golden is the profuse hair".)
This book is relatively short. We get compelling portraits of Governor Adelbert Ames, an abolitionist and West Point graduate and Ames' wife, Blanche Butler. Then comes Mississippi's descent into full on terrorism. And then a surprising wrap-up that brings us all the way to Senator John F Kennedy writing Profiles of Courage, where JFK's chapter lionizing Lucius Lamar definitely takes the side of the Confederacy.
Most of the narrative is anchored in the copious records left behind by both the governor of Mississippi, Adelbert Ames, and his wife, Blanche Butler Ames. Before the book descends into all of the shootings, kidnappings, and torturings with fire, we get really fun descriptions and letter fragments from the newlyweds, writing back and forth to each other.
For many years, my questions have been: why did Reconstruction fail? Who "failed" it? Why didn't the black majorities of the deep south just do the democratic thing: choose better leaders?
This book really delivers on these questions. In fact, if you are in a hurry, just read pp. 70-80.
(This is a little off topic but early in the book, I was amazed to see the main character of Edith Wharton's House of Mirth had a real life conterpart. Lehmann shares with us a clipping about the governor's wife, Blanche, that shows her off as a real life Lily Bart. The newspaper wrote, in 1870, "Her beauty is the event of a century and deserves celebrity with that of the immortal women whose portraits the great painters have hung...so radiant and rosy it is, so dazzling with the sunshine of dimpled smiles, so dark and splendid are the eyes, so bright and golden is the profuse hair".)
September 26, 2024
REDEMPTION examines the troubled and violent realities of Reconstruction in Mississippi and Louisiana between 1873 and 1875. Author Nicholas Lemann, Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, describes the armed struggle for the fate of the postwar South and preservation of newfound black rights. This struggle, decided by who Lemann labels as “hard men with intensely local concerns,” was fueled by racial antagonism and vigilantism and questions over the dividing line between state and federal authority. For example, Lemann describes the ill-fated military governorship of Adelbert Ames, who faced down race riots and a hostile state legislature during his rule between 1874 and 1876. Due to the opposition to race reform in the state, Ames’ rule was bolstered by the arrival of hundreds of US troops sent by President Grant – an issue which was later resolved in the aftermath of the 1876 presidential election. Ames, with the backing of federal troops, persisted for a few years but was eventually forced to resign to avoid impeachment. Lemann summarizes this standoff in excellent detail, underscoring how the legacy of the Civil War remained fiercely unresolved in the postwar years, including the status of newly won civil rights of freed slaves and blacks.
September 24, 2022
Funny what you aren't taught in school. As Lemann notes towards the end of this book, the failure to teach factually and correctly the truth of "Redemption" and Reconstruction can be attributed to the success of Southern (then-) Democrats' repetition of a mythology that the Post Civil War South engaged in a holy crusade to save their culture from Northern corruption and rapaciousness. Lemann focuses much of the book on the horrors perpetrated against Black residents of Mississippi from 1868-1876m when so-called White Leaguers (ex-Confederate veterans, politicians, plantation owners) seized political power through threats, lynchings and murders, paving the way for the end of federal oversight and protection of the newly freed slaves and the opening for Jim Crow laws. This is a sobering but necessary book which, by the way, demonstrates that history certainly echoes: much of the tactics used by those Democrats in the South now manifest themselves in much the same way with MAGA Republicans, QAnon nuts, et al.
March 9, 2018
If you have read anything at all about the rights of African-Americans during the pre-civil rights South, imagine a life many times worse. That, according to the author, was life in the waning Reconstruction days in the South, when African-Americans who had become used to voting, being elected to office and being treated with some manner of equality were regularly driven from such posts, terrorized and murdered. The author cites incidents in several states but centers his narrative around Mississippi and the governorship of Adelbert Ames, a former Union officer who ultimately is powerless to stop the rampaging white Democratic mobs from taking back their state. The history is interesting, but the book reads (is heard) a little too much like a scholarly dissertation than history well told. Annoyingly, the audio book reader also slips into a gooey, fake Southern drawl when depicting racist Democratic Southerners and out of it when depicting non-racist Southerners.
September 7, 2021
This tells an interesting and true story in outline, that the so-called Redemption was a largely successful white terrorist movement to undo the gains of the Reconstruction, but it is also a disappointing book. It is better as a description of the villains of the story, the Lamars and the white line terrorists, than it is of the heroes, black or white. Grant and Ames come across as more feckless than they were in real life. At some stage in the last chapter, Lemann even says that Carl Schurz was the only pro-black voice in the Hayes Administration. Schurz had been pro-black about a decade before this, when he authored the Shurz report into white terrorism under Johnson, but he was decidedly not so in the mid-70s. There are a lot of superficial errors like this which accumulate, which is a pity because the basic story he tells is a good one and needs to be told.
November 16, 2024
This book discussed the collapse of Reconstruction as precipitated by the Mississippi elections of 1875, and it tells the story beautifully. I will never cease being struck by the fact that there existed a great number of powerful people invested in the enfranchisement and citizenship of Black Americans decades before the Civil Rights Era, and this book helped me feel the profound sadness that comes from watching a laudable experiment in racial equality crumble under the vicious terrorism of the white South. Adelbert Ames and the Radical Republicans bore many flaws - a sense of paternalism being but one - but many of them had admirable ambitions for ex-slaves, and I think this book helps demonstrate Reconstruction was nearly an impossible task in the face of an organized and vindictive civilian populace in the South that would never accept Black people as equals.
August 27, 2019
An invaluable read for anyone interested in the Reconstruction period. Lemann turns a focused but deep lens to, primarily, the events of the mid-1870s in the Southern US, illustrating the central role of well organized and funded reactionary white supremacist terrorism in continuing the racial conflict of the Civil War and resisting the legal enforcement of the postwar amendments. Honestly pretty wild to read about how thoroughly white Democrat southerners believed their own lies about the danger of so-called “negro uprisings,” and the depths of violence and atrocity they engaged in to disenfranchise black people across the south.
June 29, 2017
A great account of redemption, that oft-overlooked (at least by me) period of American history marked by white terrorism. Lemann does a great job of illustrating the political context through events as they happened on the ground. He brings to life horrific events which marked the bloody transition from slavery to the next form of systemic racial oppression.
January 10, 2018
Engaging and important overview of how the South won reconstruction and effectively reversed the 14th and 15th amendments through a campaign of terrorism which the North ultimately lacked the political will to fight. So much of US history rests upon the foundation of this brutal loss, which continues to echo to this day.
August 2, 2020
Now this is a history book. The story is compelling and transformative. It completely readjusts my attitude about Reconstruction, its end, and the subsequent loss of gains by African Americans. I recommend this beautifully researched and written history to everyone, as a learning experience about both history and the way that events can be distorted in history.
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