Reconstruction

(1862–77)

Reconstruction, the name commonly given to the period at the close of and immediately after the Civil War, refers not just to an historical era but to an objective and a process. The reconstruction of a viable Union was the North's main objective during the Civil War; how this was to be accomplished was a thorny political and constitutional, as well as military, puzzle.

Reconstruction began as soon as federal armies captured significant amounts of Confederate territory. The Lincoln administration had to make decisions about how such territory was to be governed; the usual resort was to grant commanders wide authority over everyone within their military jurisdictions. In some instances, Lincoln appointed a military governor with theoretical power over an entire state. Andrew Johnson, for example, was installed as military governor of Tennessee in March of 1862. The influence of military governors, however, tended to be limited to regions remote from the zone of active hostilities—when commanders and military governors clashed over the best policy to be applied toward Southern civilians, the Lincoln administration tended to back the commanders.

In the short run, federal authorities faced two principal tasks: (1) the maintenance of order and (2) the creation of a workable policy to address the numbers of slaves that soon sought protection under the Stars and Stripes. The first was reasonably straightforward. White civilians were divided into three basic categories: the loyal, the neutral or passive, and the actively hostile. Whenever possible, the Lincoln administration gave legal recognition to a state government composed of Southern Unionists, though its powers might be negligible. Virginia had such a government, for example; its main achievement was to give permission for its northwestern counties to form the state of West Virginia in June 1863.