Thaddeus Stevens would attempt to resurrect the issue by advocating the confiscation of the lands of all Confederates worth $10,000 or more for redistribution. This would provide enough land for the freedmen but leave the lands of 90 percent of the residents of the South untouched. But in renewing the bureau in July 16, 1866, Congress validated the restoration of lands to white Southerners in the Sherman Reservation, the belt of abandoned plantations in the Georgia Sea Islands and coast that Gen. Sherman had turned over to freedmen.
