Reconstruction's Overstretched Army, and Clara Barton's Life of Service

Two stories from the Civil War era, from James A. Garfield National Historic Site's newsletter.

An army too small to keep the peace

The Freedmen's Bureau, a cornerstone of Reconstruction meant to help African Americans improve their lives, was opposed by many white Southerners. A. R. Waud for Harper's Weekly / Library of Congress

With the Union victorious in 1865, the government's top concern was readmitting the southern states. The U.S. Army was central to that work — and to protecting the political and civil rights newly won by freed people. But it was shrinking fast:

• President Andrew Johnson required Southerners to swear loyalty to the Union and renounce the Confederacy before they could vote or hold office. Army officers who knew of false oaths sometimes barred men from voting or running — which bred tension with local people.
• In 1867, the Radical Republicans took control of Reconstruction from Johnson, determined to punish the South. They put it under military control, giving commanders sweeping powers to protect Black people and their white Republican allies and their property, remove disloyal officials, and replace civil courts with military commissions.
• From 1867 to 1870, violence was frequent. Black people and white Republicans lived under constant threat from white Southerners who felt targeted by a vindictive Congress.
• The 1870s were worse. After Democrats regained power in the mid-1870s, ballot fraud spread, and mob attacks and lynchings were used to stop anyone but native-born white Southerners from voting — the work of groups such as the White Leaguers, Red Shirts and Ku Klux Klan. President Ulysses S. Grant complained that "the whole public are [sic] tired out with these autumnal outbreaks in the South…"

By the 1876 election, fewer federal troops were in the South than at any time since the war, and they could no longer police elections. Their final withdrawal from South Carolina and Louisiana conceded that military force had failed to bring the social justice Northerners had hoped for.

Clara Barton's lifetime of service

Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. Library of Congress

Clarissa "Clara" Harlowe Barton was born in North Oxford, Massachusetts, in 1821, the youngest of five children. At 11, she spent two years nursing her brother David after a fall from a barn rafter — even applying his leeches.

Barton had the idea of making natural disaster relief part of the Red Cross mission — an idea the International Red Cross adopted. Much of the American Red Cross's success grew from her hands-on battlefield experience. More: Clara Barton National Historic Site.

Sources

Based on "Garfield Telegraph May 2023," National Park Service, James A. Garfield National Historic Site; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The newsletter's event listings are not included here.