After the War: A Southern Tour - May 1, 1865 to May 1, 1866
"After the War: A Southern Tour - May 1, 1865 to May 1, 1866" by Whitelaw Reid. Available for free from Project Gutenberg, this is a sort of diary of a tour taken by Federal officials and others immediately following the Civil War. One of the people on this tour was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The book discusses the condition of the cities, and many new settlements of freed slaves. A common theme throughout seems to be how well the freedmen are doing, compared with the former rebels. In places where the government is handing out rations for people to survive, the former slaves have been working the land and making a living, while their former owners are essentially sitting back, complaining that they can't get their former slaves to work. Poor whites are almost completely reliant on government handouts, while freedmen are, overall, doing much better.
Reading a contemporary account, you can see that yes, it really absolutely *was* really all about slavery; the 'states rights' that were being used as an excuse - and still are, to this day - were mostly the 'right' to keep their slaves, no matter what state they traveled or moved into.
Lots of discussion about the attitudes in various communities about suffrage for the freedmen, especially in areas where the former slaves were taking every advantage of the new schools and getting educated, compared with the poor whites who actually had a much lower level of literacy.
Fascinating contemporary account of the effects of the Civil War and a good background to put into context what some people *really* mean when they talk about their 'heritage'.
(Much racist language, but considering the times... Also, some of the language is used in a very sarcastic way, actually denigrating the former slaveholders for their way of thinking. It took a little while in one chapter to wrap my head around the way they were tossing around 'just a n******', until I realized that the context they were using it was meant to be a slight against the rebels' way of thinking.)
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