Research Catalog

Title

The bloody shirt : terror after Appomattox / Stephen Budiansky.

Author

Budiansky, Stephen.

Publication

New York : Viking, [2008], ©2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

322 pages, 4 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations, portraits, facsimiles; 24 cm

Summary

"From 1866 to 1876, more than three thousand free African Americans and their white allies were killed in cold blood by terrorist organizations in the South. Over the years this fact would not only be forgotten, but a series of exculpatory myths would arise to cover the tracks of this orchestrated campaign of atrocity and violence. Little memory would persist of the simple truth: that a well-organized and directed terrorist movement, led by ex-Confederates who refused to accept the verdict of Appomattox and the enfranchisement of the freedmen, succeeded in overthrowing the freely elected representative governments of every Southern state." "In The Bloody Shirt, Stephen Budiansky brings to life this largely forgotten but epochal chapter of American history through the intertwining lives of five courageous men who tried to stop the violence and keep the dream of freedom and liberty alive. They include James Longstreet, the ablest general of the Confederate army, who would be vilified and ostracized for insisting that the South must accept the terms of the victor and the enfranchisement of black men; Lewis Merrill of the 7th Cavalry, who fought the Klan in South Carolina; and Prince Rivers, who escaped from slavery, fought for the Union, became a state representative and magistrate, and died performing the same menial labor he had as a slave. Using letters and diaries left by these men as well as startlingly hateful diatribes published in Southern newspapers after the war, Budiansky proves beyond a doubt that terrorism is hardly new to America." "The Bloody Shirt is a story of violence, racism, division, and heroism that sheds new light on a crucial time in America's history."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)
• African Americans > History > 1863-1877
• Southern States > History > 19th century
• United States > History > 1865-1898

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographic references (p. [283]-322) and index.

Contents

I. "I Thought the South Wanted it to End There" -- II. "The War Still Exists" -- III. "The Half Has Not Been Told You" -- IV. "Plain Honest Convictions of a Soldier" -- V. "Vote the Negro Down or Knock Him Down" -- VI. "The Passion-Stirring Event at Hamburg" -- VII. "Greed, the Father of Slaves, Was Too Much for Us"

ISBN

• 0670018406
• 9780670018406

LCCN

40015106321

OCLC

• 173350931
• ocn173350931
• SCSB-5392706

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries