The Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction

Littlefield History of the Civil War Era

by Mark Wahlgren Summers

For a generation, scholarship on the Reconstruction era has rightly focused on the struggles of the recently emancipated for a meaningful freedom and defined its success or failure largely in those terms. In The Ordeal of the Reunion, Mark Wahlgren Summers goes beyond this vitally important question, focusing on Reconstruction’s need to form an enduring Union without sacrificing the framework of federalism and republican democracy. Assessing the era nationally, Summers emphasizes the variety of conservative strains that confined the scope of change, highlights the war’s impact and its aftermath, and brings the West and foreign policy into an integrated narrative. In sum, this book offers a fresh explanation for Reconstruction’s demise and a case for its essential successes as well as its great failures. Indeed, this book demonstrates the extent to which the victors’ aims in 1865 were met — and at what cost.

Summers depicts not just a heroic, tragic moment with equal rights advanced and then betrayed but a time of achievement and consolidation, in which nationhood and emancipation were placed beyond repeal and the groundwork was laid for a stronger, if not better, America to come.

Genres: History, Civil War, American History, Nonfiction

528 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2014

About the author

Mark Wahlgren Summers is Thomas D. Clark Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.

Reviews

[Matthew Bartlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considered one of the harshest points in American history, the treatment of Reconstruction in written history books has been lacking and overly focused on specific issues. The Ordeal of the Reunion is a phenomenal one volume work on the period while focusing on those points which are lacking in recent historiography. Mark Wahlgren Summers handles many of the issues of Reconstruction but also takes things one more step in every point he makes. One of the best parts of his narrative focuses on the effects of this period on the west. The book also mentions racial equality and relations, but does not make a note of spending long periods of time on them. This not only makes the book one of the more reliable works on this period, but one of the best.
Mark Wahlgren Summers is a professor of history at the University of Kentucky focusing on 19th Century United States history, United States political history and political cartoons. He has authored many other works including A Dangerous Stir: Fear, Paranoia and the Making of Reconstruction, Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity, and Rum, Romanism and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884. He is currently working on a project about the Gilded Age politics and the Andrew Johnson impeachment. This book is also part of the Littlefield History of the Civil War Era published by the University of North Carolina Press.
One of the major highlights of this book is what was sought to do differently than usual. Not only did Summers give us a history of the Reconstruction period, but he also gave us the facets of the era which were not wholly realized in other volumes. Instead of hammering home the ideal of racial equality and the Freemen’s Bureau, Summers focuses on the need to create the “more perfect Union” and the process which allowed those states back into the Union. Not only was the West a major part of the narrative, he also focuses on the realm of foreign policy which I have not yet read in a book on the period. He praises the successes which the Reconstruction period had but also explains the failures. Throughout this book, there is never any question as to the reasoning behind his explanations or theses due to the massive amount of research he placed into this narrative. Taking from many personal accounts, Summers talks about the aftermath of the war and the abilities for the men who served to get back into their communities. This fresh outlook into the period of the Reconstruction not only gives Civil War students everywhere a chance to view the period in a new and better light, but may change the opinion of many when it comes to the unfair treatment Reconstruction has received in the past.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the American Civil War. This book not only deals with Reconstruction, but shows the reader of the harshness of life after a terrible war. The narrative is approachable to anyone who is newly entering the realm of Civil War academia or a seasoned veteran. The book is aided by political cartoons and drawings from a myriad of newspapers from the time. In conclusion, I would recommend this book to anyone studying the Civil War as a whole as a fitting end to the conflict. Summers has triumphed in his work here.

Matthew Bartlett - Gettysburg Chronicle

[Jackson Cho · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fantastic history of Reconstruction that not only gives the details but also provides the context in the wider United States to place what was going on in Reconstruction. The result is a book that is as much a tale of America in the Gilded Age, putting behind the Civil War and how it moved forward. Summers gives an account that is refreshingly balanced compared to other histories of Reconstruction, and the result is something that reminds me of the works of Rick Perlstein in being more a story of an era. 100% recommend for those wanting to learn more about Reconstruction but also the era in American history.

[Shaun Richman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slightly unusual history of the Reconstruction in that it takes a wider view of the country (national expansion, the West, debt and a shrinking military, railroads and corruption) to explain why white Republicans grew wary of the military occupation it would take to get white southerners to truly accept black freedom.

[Evan Þ. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of Reconstruction tries and partly succeeds to give a good overall view of the process and people's reactions and counter-reactions. Where it really succeeds in my mind is situating it in other political, social, and economic events distracting American attention, which helps me understand much more how the North quickly got so tired of it: on the one hand they never wanted long-term military occupation, and on the other hand an economic depression made them even more hungry for normalization.

And long-term military occupation would be needed to enforce freedmen's rights, at least after Johnson's initial policies: Summers keeps coming back to the lawless reign of terror. Things were still better for them than under slavery - but far short of anything we, or Radical Republicans at the time, would consider remotely reasonable.

One flaw in this book is that the frequent switching of perspective and focus makes it hard to track happenings in any individual state. That's a small flaw from an all-American perspective, but it means that if I want a narrower focus I'd need to continue on to other books.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Summers writes a solid chapter on Reconstruction and American empire, but errs by defining Reconstruction through a white lens. Sure, white Americans thought Reconstruction was a success by reuniting the country economically and politically. Yet it was a moral travesty, robbing African Americans of their rights. Summers fails to give this aspect of Reconstruction the crucial attention it deserves. Hence this is a bad history of Reconstruction.

[Case Tatro · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very dense book so stuffed with facts that sometimes it is hard to grasp the bigger picture. Eye-opening for those who are able to look past the trees and see the forest.