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Thomas Nast created this illustration in 1866 for Harper's Weeklyshortly after the New Orleans Riot occurred. He started working atHarper's Weekly in 1862. He was a Radical Republican and supporter of the Union in the Civil War. He rose to fame…

The Southern Claims Commission (1871-1880) awarded monetary compensation to southerners who could prove that they had been loyal citizens of the United States and that the Union army had appropriated property from them during the Civil War. Local…

In 1865 and 1866, blacks throughout the South held conventions to determine the best strategies for protecting their freedoms in the aftermath of the war. This document is an excerpt from a convention of “colored citizens” that met in Alexandria,…

Congress’ Joint Committee on Reconstruction, composed of nine representatives and six senators, held extensive hearings in the spring of 1866 about the condition of the South and various proposals for reintegrating the former Confederate states into…

P. H. Anderson, a planter, wrote his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, who had previously served as a driver or an overseer and escaped during the war, to offer him employment after the war. P. H. Anderson, deep in debt, hoped that his former slave…

The Civil War brought the abolition of the institution of slavery in the South. Emancipation meant that many elite southern white women had to complete the harsh and strenuous labors their domestic workers once performed. Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas…

The cartoon caricatured the events of the Overland Campaign and the struggle between General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant that resulted from the campaign. The cartoon depicted Grant grabbing, turning, and then swatting Lee. The Overland…