Georgia Studies
Unit 4: Civil War and
Reconstruction
Lesson 1: Antebellum Georgia
Study Presentation

• Essential Question
-How do political policies influence growth and development?
-How did national political issues lead to the decision for Southern states to secede from the Union?

• Class Structure: North generally based on wealth; South based on wealth and being “born into the right family”
• Slavery: Practice of forcing a person, that was considered property, to work for you with no pay and with no rights. North wanted it abolished (done away with); South supported it
• Southern plantation system consisted of large and small categories; the wealthiest had the most land and the most slaves
• Economy: Northern based on mining, industry, banks, stores, and railroads; Southern based on agriculture, including cotton, rice, and indigo
• Southerners resented tariffs, which raised import prices; the
South imported more than the North

• States’ rights: Beliefs that the state’s interests take precedence over interests of national government
• Northern states believed that all states should abide by laws made by the national government
• Southern states believed that states had right to govern themselves and decide what would be best for their own situation
• Many Southern states believed that if the US Government created laws that took away their right to own slaves then those states had the right to nullify those laws.
• Nullification-Legal theory that states have a right to nullify, or invalidate, a law which that state viewed as unconstitutional.

• Compromise (agreement or settlement) between the northern and southern states; approved in
1820.
• Maine entered the Union as a free state, and
Missouri entered as a slave state
• 11 states allowed slavery and 11 states did not
• Prohibited slavery north of 36 º20’ latitude (the southern border of Missouri), and included
Louisiana Territory lands west of Missouri
• Temporarily solved slavery controversy between the states

• Compromise between northern and southern states in
1850
• California would enter Union as a free state
• New Mexico territory would not become part of Texas or a guaranteed slave state
• The District of Columbia would no longer trade slaves, but slave owners there could keep their slaves
• Runaway slaves could be returned to their owners in slave states
• Utah and New Mexico territories could decide if they wanted to allow slaves or not

• The Georgia Platform-Statement from the
Georgia Convention in response to the
Compromise of 1850. Supported by Union states, the Georgia Platform stated that the Southern states would agree to follow the Compromise of 1850 (and not leave the Union) as long as northern states would no longer attempt to take away rights from southern states.

• Created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska in 1854; nullified the Missouri Compromise and broke the peace created by the Compromise of
1850
• Led to the creation of the Republican Party and further divided the northern and southern states
• Those territories had right of popular sovereignty
• Popular sovereignty: When a territory asked for statehood, the people could vote on slavery
• Freesoilers in those territories fought against
Abolitionists and proslavery supporters

• Supreme Court ruling in 1857
• A slave filed suit after he lived in free states with his owner but was returned to slave state
• Court ruled that slaves were not citizens and could not file lawsuits
• Court also ruled that Congress could not stop slavery in the territories
• Decision further separated the North and South

• Led the movement to do away with slavery. Many northern whites, some southern whites, and free blacks were involved
• Made speeches, wrote books and articles, and offered their homes as safe houses for runaway slaves
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), by Harriet Beecher Stowe, portrayed slavery’s evils; the book sold more than 1 million copies
• Many abolitionists assisted slaves in their escape from southern states to the north. Many of these slaves escaped on the
Underground Railroad.
• The Underground Railroad was not a railroad or underground but instead was a series of roads, houses, river crossings, boats, wagons, woods, and streams where white and black citizens
(known as conductors) would assist slaves in the escape attempts.
• One famous conductor was Harriet Tubman. Tubman was an exslave that personally helped more than 300 slaves escape to freedom

• Turner led bloody rebellion in Virginia; between
57 and 85 people died; Turner was hanged
• Nat Turner’s Rebellion and other unsuccessful rebellions prompted strict laws across the South, known as Slave Codes, designed to curtail slave movements, meetings, and efforts to learn to read and write
• These laws applied to both slaves and freed blacks and gave slave owners near-absolute power over their human property.

• 500,000 freed blacks; only 6 percent lived in South (mostly Virginia and Maryland)
• By 1860, 11.5 percent of nation’s 4 million slaves lived in Georgia
• 3, 500 freed blacks lived in Georgia by
1860
• Slaves in the lower South cultivated “King
Cotton” which accounted for 50% of
America’s exports

• In 1860, Abraham Lincoln, a Republican from Illinois, won election at President of the US
• Northern states favored a Republican candidate that would help to abolish slavery. Southern states favored candidates that supported States’ Rights
• Northern States, California and Oregon supported
Lincoln
• Most Southern states supported John C. Breckinridge
• Most Border states supported either Stephen Douglas or
John Bell

• 68,000 farms by 1860; cotton was chief crop
• 500 plantations (500 acres or more); most farms were less than 100 acres
• 60% of Georgians owned no slaves; only 236 had 100 or more slaves
• Half of Georgia’s total wealth was in slaves
($400 million)
• 1,890 factories in Georgia by 1860; about $11 million in value

• Georgians were, for the most part, for the Union; however, they were strongly for states’ rights
• Despite lawmakers’ strong debates for and against secession (leaving the union/country), a
Secession convention began in January 1861 in
Milledgeville, the capital
• A secession ordinance (bill) passed by a vote of
208-89
• The Southern states who seceded met in
Montgomery, Alabama in February, 1861; they formed the Confederate States of America

• Alexander H. Stephens served as a Representative in
Congress from Georgia from 1843-1859. During this time he spoke against southern secession. However, after the southern states seceded from the Union
Stephens was elected as Vice President of the
Confederate States of America (CSA) in 1861.
• Robert Toombs was named Secretary of State of the
Confederate States of American
• Governor Joseph E. Brown favored secession and used his terms as governor to prepare Georgia for war

Georgia Studies
Unit 4: Civil War and
Reconstruction
Lesson 2: The Civil War
Study Presentation

• Essential Question

• April 10, 1861, Major General P.G.T.
Beauregard leads bombardment of Fort
Sumter, in Charleston Harbor
• Federal troops an laborers inside Fort
Sumter surrender on April 13
• Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and
Virginia secede from the Union
• President Abraham Lincoln calls for
75,000 troops to put down the rebellion and protect Washington

• Most soldiers volunteered at first, but later men were conscripted (drafted to serve in the armies)
• Some men received bounties (money) to sign up; some signed up, received the bounty, then deserted
(ran away)
• Poorer men sometimes accepted money to fight in place of wealthier men who didn’t want to serve
• Some 178,985 enlisted men served in black regiments during the Civil War; almost all fought for the Union
• Boys as young as 10 served in both armies; thousands of soldiers were between 14 and 16 years old

• North had more people from which to create and resupply armies
• North had more factories, better railroad system, and most of the nation’s food growing farms and wealth
• South had more experienced military leaders, and were highly motivated to defend their familiar homeland and to win independence.
• Most Southern farms were used to grow cash crops (cotton, etc.), so trade (cotton for weapons/supplies) was very important to the
South.

• Union (North):
Union blockaded of GA’s coast-Close all Southern ports
(using ironclads-armored ships) to prevent cotton exports and imports of weaponry from foreign countries
-Destroy Confederate armies on the battlefield
-Lay waste to the Southern land, so that civilians would call for an end to the war
• Confederacy (South):
-Wear down the Union armies, which would hasten the northerners’ desire to end the war
-Use swift raiders (small, fast ships) to help break the
Union blockade
-King Cotton Diplomacy: Convince France and England to help the Confederacy by stopping the export of Cotton to these countries

• Battle of Antietam- Sept. 17, 1862 near
Sharpsburg, Maryland. Bloodiest single day of the Civil War. Union Army defeated the
Confederate Army (under the leadership of
Robert E. Lee). About 2,000 Northerners and 2,
700 Southerners were killed and 19,000 people were wounded.
• Battle of Gettysburg-July 1 to July 3, 1863 in
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Union Army defeats the Confederates. Union suffers 23,000
Causalities (dead and wounded soldiers).
Confederacy suffers 28,000 causalities.

• President Abraham Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation on September
22, 1862
• Document gave the Southern Confederacy a choice: Quit the war and keep slavery alive or keep fighting and slaves would be forever free
• Deadline was January 1, 1863
• The Confederate leaders continued the war and the slaves were declared free by the
United States government in 1863.

• More than 100 battles or skirmishes in
Georgia; 92 happened in 1864 during the
Atlanta and Savannah campaigns
• First battle, April 10, 1862, was at all-brick
Fort Pulaski, near Tybee Island
• Rifled cannon used by U.S. Army in warfare for the first time; the Confederates surrendered the fort in less than two days
• No brick American forts were built after this battle

• Fought in September 1863
• Seven miles south of Chattanooga,
Tennessee
• Chattanooga was major railroad center and was important to the movement of supplies and troops for the Confederacy
• Union troops were driven back to
Chattanooga; Confederates did not follow-up on their victory by attacking retreating soldiers
• Union reinforcements later recaptured the city of Chattanooga

• Late Spring/Early Summer 1864: William Tecumseh
Sherman’s Union Army fought series of battles against Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate Army in an attempt to capture/destroy the important
Confederate rail and supply center of Atlanta
• Confederates continued to retreat further southward into Georgia
• June 27, 1864: Sherman attacked Johnston at
Kennesaw Mountain; Sherman was unable to defeat the Confederate troops but continued toward Atlanta
• July 1864: Confederate General John Bell Hood replaced Johnston, battled Sherman, then concentrated defenses in Atlanta

• Sherman surrounded the city and laid siege
• Hood wanted to lure Sherman into the city to fight, but that didn’t work
• Fighting continued during July and August 1864
• Hood and Atlanta’s citizens finally evacuated the city on September 1, 1864
• Sherman burns the city in mid-November then begins his march toward Savannah and the sea.
The Army then burned all but about 400 of Atlanta’s buildings (approximately 90% of Atlanta was burned/destroyed)

• Part of the Lay Waste StrategySherman’s Union army destroys everything in its path, 300 miles from Atlanta to Savannah
• A sixty mile-wide area is burned, destroyed, and ruined during a two-month period
• Estimated losses exceeded $100 million
• Captured, but did not burn, Savannah in
December 1864
• Union troops loaded and shipped $28 million worth of cotton, stored in Savannah, to the North

• January 13, 1865: Fort Fisher in North Carolina captured; the last Confederate blockade-running port
• General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Virginia cannot defeat Union General Ulysses S. Grant at
Petersburg; he surrenders his army at
Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865
• Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Vice
President Alexander Stephens (from GA) flee and are eventually captured

• Both North and South had prisons for captured soldiers; thousands of men on both sides died in these prisons
• Andersonville Prison, in Southwest Georgia, was overcrowded, and offered poor food, contaminated water, and poor sanitation; 13,700
Union soldiers are buried there
• Captain Henry Wirtz, Andersonville Prison commander, was later hanged for “excessive cruelty”
• Andersonville is now home to the National
Prisoner of War Museum

• 620,000 people died during the war; about two-thirds died from diseases, wounds, or military prison hardships
• In order to reenter the United States the
South would have to endure political, emotional, and physical reconstruction
• Healing of emotional wounds took far longer than the war itself
• The North or the South would never be the same again

Georgia Studies
Unit 4: Georgia in a Divided Nation
Lesson 3: Reconstruction
Study Presentation

• Essential Question
-How did political action and social reaction change the Southern culture after the Civil War?

• Farms were in ruins; not enough food
• Homes, railways, bridges, roads were destroyed or in need of repair
• Banks were closed-Confederate money was worthless
• The state owed $20,000,000 in war debt
• 25,000 Georgians had died of wounds or disease-many more were crippled and could not work

• Problems of freedman (former slaves):
-Homeless
-Hungry-Not enough food
-Uneducated
-Free for the 1 st time
-No property or goods; many freedman began working in sharecropping or tenant farming to survive
• Many former slaves feared re-enslavement
• Most whites had difficulty treating freedman as free persons since they had previously been slaves and were treated as property.

• Sharecropping
-Landowner provides a house, land, equipment, animals, fertilizer, and seeds.
-The landowner issued credit to the worker to buy medicine, food, clothing, and other supplies
-The landowner gets a share of the crop and crops to pay any debt owed
Sharecroppers rarely had any cash
• Tenant Farming
-Landowner provides house and land
-Landowner received a set amount of cash or a portion of the crop at the end of the season
-Tenant farmers usually made a small profit.

• Started as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedman, and
Abandoned Lands by U. S. Government in 1865
• Its purpose was to help freed slaves and poor whites with the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter
•
The purpose shifted to education:
-Set up 4,000 primary schools
-Started industrial schools for jobs training
-Started teacher-training schools
• Missionaries started schools like Atlanta University,
Morehouse College, and Clark College to give freedmen opportunities at higher education

• Lincoln wanted to rebuild and return the south to the
Union as soon as possible
• “Reconstruction” would have two parts:
-Southerners would be pardoned after taking an oath of allegiance;
-When 10% of voters had taken the oath, the state could rejoin the Union and form a state government
• Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865 during a play at Ford’s Theater by actor John Wilkes Booth
• Vice President Andrew Johnson took over as
President

• Lincoln’s plan to reconstruct the south was challenged. Some northerners called
“Radical Republicans” thought the south should be more severely punished
• The Radical Republicans wanted to make sure the freedmen retained their new right
• Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured and imprisoned

• In addition to Lincoln’s requirements,
President Johnson added a few more.
Southern states had to:
-Approve (ratify) the 13 th Amendment
(outlawing slavery);
-Nullify their ordinances of secession
-Promise not to repay money borrowed during the war

• President Johnson appointed James
Johnson as Georgia’s provisional Governor
• Governor Johnson held a Constitutional
Convention. The representatives voted to abolish slavery and repeal the ordinance of secession
• Elections were held in November 1865 for a new legislature
• The General Assembly voted to extend rights to freedman.

• Congress was angry about Georgia’s Black
Codes, so it passed the Civil Rights Act of
1866. This law gave:
-citizenship to all freedman
-the federal government power to intervene any time civil rights were taken from freedman
• The 14 th Amendment was passed granting citizenship to freedman and required “equal protection under the law.”

• Congress required southern states to ratify the 14 th amendment
• Georgia and most of the other southern states refused
• Congress abolished these states’ governments and put them under military rule
• Georgia was ruled by General John Pope
• Pope was required to register all male voters-black and white. These voters would elect new representatives to form a new state government

• Georgia male voters elected delegates to the convention to create a new state constitution.
• Delegates were carpetbaggers (northerners who had moved south) ,scalawags (southerners who sided with the republicans), and blacks
 Accomplishments of the Convention:
-A new constitution ensuring civil rights for all citizens
-Free public education for all children;
-Women were allowed to control their own property.
 Georgia had satisfied Congress, so general Pope and his troops left the state.

• The election of 1867 was the first time African
Americans in Georgia were able to vote.
• Several African Americans were elected to
Georgia’s General Assembly (Legislative Branch)
• Rev. Henry McNeal Turner was one of the first black men elected in Georgia.
• The African Americans elected to the General
Assembly were expelled ( kicked out of office) in
1868.
• It was argued by whites that civil rights laws gave blacks the right to vote but not to be elected to office.

• Secret organization – originally started as a social club for men returning from the war.
• Members hid behind robes and masks.
• The group terrorized blacks to keep them from voting
• As a result, Congress passed “The Georgia
Act” and sent troops back to Georgia.
• The act required Georgia to pass the 15 th
Amendment giving all males the right to vote.

• The African Americans who had been expelled from the General Assembly in
1868 were readmitted by the Georgia
Supreme Court in 1870.
• Georgia’s General Assembly approved the 14 th and 15 th Amendments.
• Georgia was readmitted to the Union, ending Reconstruction in Georgia.