Era of Reconstruction (1862-1877) and Reunion (to 1915)

 A Selective Timeline

1862 -- Union Army  seizes Confederate property and territory in La. and S.C. Sea Islands; confronts problem of ownership
and governance of slaves

 1863 -- President Lincoln indicates his post-war policy whereby rebel states regain legal standing when 10% of its voters
  swear allegiance to Union and  accept end of slavery. Looking to a quick, non-punitive presidential reconstruction.

 1864 -- March – Republican-dominated Congress proposes its own version of reconstruction, Wade-Davis Bill;
  Southern states not back until 50%  of voters swear allegiance and ratify 13th Amendment (outlawing slavery);

 1864 -- November -- Lincoln solidly reelected to second term; seems ready to negotiate differences over Reconstruction
with fellow  Republicans in Congress

 1865 -- February -- Grant victorious in siege of Petersburg and  occupies Richmond; Congress established the Freedmen's
  Bureau to assist with post-war rearrangements in South and assure Northern/Republican presence

 1865 -- March 4th -- Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address -- calls for "malice toward none, charity for all."

 1865 -- April 9th  -- Lee's Confederate Army disbanded following his surrender to Grant at Appomattox

 1865 -- April  13th/14th -- President Lincoln killed by  Rebel assassin ; Vice-President Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Unionist, becomes president

 1865 -- Summer -- President Johnson, expectations to the contrary,  pushes for rapid and non-punitive reentry
  of rebel states to full standing in Washington; Congressional opposition building for more protracted process.

 1865 -- 13th Amendment ratified.

 1865 -- Fall -- Southern states enact "Black codes" to limit the movement of Freedmen in South ; tie them to old owners in labor arrangements reminiscent of slavery

 1865 -- December -- Republican leadership in Congress refuse to seat Southern delegations; openly challenge  President
  Johnson over who is to set the terms of Reconstruction, which Johnson declares is over..

 1866 --  Spring -- Congress proposes 14th Amendment, providing federally protected  citizenship to  Freedmen;
   extends Freedman's Bureau mandate

 1866 -- Summer -- Race riots in Memphis, New Orleans,  whites attacking blacks who attempted to exercise their freedom;
  Ku Klux Klan comes into being to enforce white control in the countryside

 1866 -- November -- Despite vigorous campaigning by President Johnson against "radical" Republicans in Congress
  such as Thaddeus Stevens,  his critics win  control of House and  set about to  dictate terms of Reconstruction

 1867 -- March --  Congressional/Radical  Reconstruction underway:  anti-Johnson legislation (Tenure of Office/Command of Army)
  force Johnson into impeachment proceedings; narrowly acquitted by Senate but his effective presidency over.

           10 Southern states reorganized into 5 military districts; suffrage  limited to non-rebels, assuring Freedmen/Republican
majorities in 5 states; readmission now  dependent upon ratifying 14th and 15th Amendments (black male suffrage)

 1868 -- 14th Amendment ratified

 1868 --  Congress receives complying delegates from Southern states sent by Republican/Freedmen/Scalawag/Carpetbagger
   state governments; Era of "radical" reconstruction commences in South (2 Black US senators; 20 congressmen;
   no governors) with mixed results

 1868 -- November -- Republican presidential candidate US Grant wins narrow plurality (310,000) against NY Democrat Horatio
  Seymour; Black Republican vote in South decisive in securing the White House for Republicans

 1870 -- 15th Amendment ratified.

 1871 --  The state governments of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia back in hands of Democrats/"Redeemers;"
   Reconstruction effectively over there in these states..

 1872 --  Anti-Grant Republicans bolt to support Democratic candidate Horace Greeley,
  but Grant wins reelection handily (700,000 plurality)

 1873 -- Economic Panic/Crash amidst growing evidence of Grant administration corruptions; Republicans lose interest
  in pressing Reconstruction on white South and championing Freedmen

 1873 -- New York journalist James S. Pike  published The Prostrate State, an indictment of Reconstruction rule in
  South Carolina

 1874 -- November -- Democrats capture control of House

 1875 -- Supreme Court rules in several Civil Rights Cases that 14th Amendment protections against racial discrimination
  do not extend to private arrangements

 1876 -- November -- Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes trailed Democrat Samuel Tilden in popular and electoral
  vote until Congressional commission in 1877 gives challenged electoral votes of  Louisiana, Florida and  South Carolina
  to Hayes; involves "Compromise of 1877" to bring end to Reconstruction without disrupting business development in South.

 1879 – Albion W. Tourgee,  a Yankee-come-South, published A Fool’s Errand, on the failure of  the North to support efforts of Southern Blacks to claim their political rights

 1880 -- Joel Chandler Harris published Uncle Remus Stories, a romanticized version of race relations in the Old South

 1880 -- Henry Adams anonymously published a novel, Democracy,  in which the corruptions of national politics are unfavorably
  contrasted with the nobility of the Old South

 1886 -- North-South standardization of railroad gauge bringing South into national rail transportation network

 1895 – Booker T. Washington, President of Tuskegee Institute, calls upon fellow blacks to set aside political demands and concentrate on economic empowerment.  

 1896 -- Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson  permits states to segregate public facilties under guise of providing "separate but equal" facilities; Justice Harlan the sole dissenter.

 1898 -- Devices of Southern states such as poll tax and literacy tests to disenfranchise black voters upheld by Supreme Court;
  Region in effective political control of the whites-only Democratic Party for next six decades

 1907 -- Columbia historian William A. Dunning published Reconstruction, Political and Economic, an indictment of 
  Reconstruction in theory and practice; becomes the standard view into the 1940s.

 1912 -- Woodrow Wilson, Virginian by birth, elected President; completes racial segregation of nation's capitol

 1915 --  D.W. Griffith produced film, The Birth of a Nation, wildly popular depiction of Reconstruction from
 Southern racist perspective