Why did the United States failed to give the freedmen land after the Essay

Why did the United States failed to give the freedmen land after the Civil war - Essay Example That was majorly between the southern slavery states in America. We will brush up of what we know of Civil war, Reconstruction Era and the problems faced by the freedmen in the following paragraphs. The Confederate States of America was formed by eleven southern slave states also known as "the Confederacy". Jefferson Davis led the Confederacy and fought for its independence from the United States. Twenty mostly-Northern Free states supported U.S. federal government where slavery was already abolished, along with five slave states that became known as the Border States. These twenty-five states, referred to as the Union, had a much larger base of population and industry than the South. After four years of devastating warfare (mostly within the Southern states), the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was outlawed everywhere in the nation. This was Civil War which is also called as â€Å"War between the States†. The restoration of the Union, and the Reconstruction Era that follo wed, dealt with issues that remained unresolved for generations. Freedmen referred here are the blacks who worked as slaves in America. The land which could have been given to these people was not given. When we study the period of the war, we can understand that there was lot of material losses which surmounted with economy crisis. The statistics of the losses and economic crisis during this period is found in â€Å"The History of Southern United States†. Few pointers from the book are stated here. Reconstruction 2 played out against a backdrop of a once prosperous economy in ruins. The Confederacy in 1861 had 297 towns and cities with a combined population of 835,000; of these, 162 with a 681,000 people were at one point occupied by Union forces. Eleven were destroyed or severely damaged by war action, including Atlanta, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; and Richmond, Virginia; these eleven contained 115,900 people in the 1860 census, or 14% of the urban South. The number of people who lived in the destroyed towns represented just over 1% of the Confederacy's combined urban and rural populations. In addition, 45 courthouses were burned (out of 830), destroying the documentation for the legal relationships in the affected communities. Farms were in disrepair, and the prewar stock of horses, mules and cattle was much depleted. The South's farms were not highly mechanized, but the value of farm implements and machinery in the 1860 Census was $81 million and was reduced by 40% by 1870. The transportation infrastructure lay in ruins, with little railroad or riverboat service available to move crops and animals to market. Railroad mileage was located mostly in rural areas and over two-thirds of the South's rails, bridges, rail yards, repair shops and rolling stock were in areas reached by Union armies, which systematically destroyed what they could. Even in untouched areas, the lack of maintenance and repair, the absence of new equipment, the heavy over-use, and the deliberate relocation of equipment by the Confederates from remote areas to the war zone ensured the system would be ruined at war's end. Restoring the infrastructure—especially the railroad system—became a high priority for Reconstruction state governments. The enormous cost of the Confederate war effort took a high toll on the South's economic infrastructure. The direct costs to the Confederacy in human capital, government expenditures, and physical destruction from the war totaled 3.3 billion dollars. By 1865, the Confederate dollar was worthless due to massive inflation, and people in the South had to resort to bartering services for goods, or else use scarce Union dollars. With the emancipation of the southern slaves, the entire economy of the South had to