Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War

This book shows how, in 1875, political power in Mississippi was wrested by violent means from the black-supported (and largely black-staffed) Republican government by what was essentially the pre-war white power structure. Many blacks were killed in the state in that year, and blacks were prevented from voting. Lemann's documentation of what happened, based on testimony in Congressional investigations and on other contemporary sources, is impeccable, and his conclusion is overwhelming. Local whites, with the covert and sometimes overt support of whites elsewhere in the South, carried out with extreme violence a successful rebellion against the authority of the U.S. central government. Its purpose -- and result -- was the show more disenfranchisement of the black population, which in turn led to black political powerlessness, black economic subordination, and Jim Crow. The process, or "Mississippi Plan" was adopted throughout the South in the wake of the Compromise of 1877, which gave the Republicans the Presidency and the Democrats a free hand in the south.

The book is fascinating in itself-- it shows more clearly than anything else I have read how we got from the Emancipation Proclamation to Jim Crow -- but it is also a compelling illustration of the power of political myth. In the latter part of his book, Lemann describes how the racist violence of 1875 was converted into the "Redemption" myth of a valiant Southern effort to oust corrupt carpet-baggers, and restore self-government in the south. This myth took hold not only of popular culture (viz "Birth of a Nation" and "Gone With the Wind") but of serious academic discussion, all the way into the second half of the 20th century. Myths like this can, and do, kill. show less

http://www.amazon.com/Redemption-Last-Battle-Civil-War/dp/0374248559/ref=cm_cr-m...

'Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War' is a short (207 pages) non-academic history aimed at the 'general reader' or 'popular audience'. The author is not an historian, but rather is Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. I write these things not to denigrate the book in any way, but rather to alert the prospective reader to the nature of the book.

The book is well written and focuses on the collapse of reconstruction under the open violent assault of 'White Liners' in Mississippi. This tale is well known and nothing particularly new is added here, but the failure of reconstruction is a hugely important story in American history. You really can show more not understand 20th century America without understanding what happened in the South after the Civil War.

Ironically one of the better parts of the book comes near the end when Lemann reviews the way the story of Reconstruction was revised beyond all recognition beginning especially in the early 1900's.

Lemann's telling still lends too much credence to the role of so-called Northern carpetbaggers in Reconstruction. The Republican leaders of Reconstruction were not all cut from the same clothe.

Lemann gets off to an extraordinarily bad start with a real howler on the first page when he asserts that the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the areas that the Union Army controlled. Of course, that is exactly incorrect. In fact, perhaps the biggest criticism of the Proclamation was that it freed no slaves because it did not apply in the areas then under Union control.

If you do not know about this crucial piece of history Redemption will give you a reasonably good examination, albeit focused on one state. However, there are far better accounts available, such as Eric Foner's 'A Short History of Reconstruction' (about 300 pages) and the much longer James M. McPherson's 'Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction' or Foner's full scale treatment 'Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877'. show less

4262 Redemption The Last Battle of the Civil War, by Nicholas Lemann (read 20 Jan 2007) This book tells of the lawless way whites in the South subverted the legal right of the Negroes in the 1870s. Most of the book dwells on Mississippi, and Adelbert Ames, Republican governor of Mississippi and his effort to get President Grant to effectually aid the rule of law in the South. Murder and blatant use of economic power caused blacks not to vote and in 1876 whites regained control of the state. The extensiveness of the use of murder by whites was a surprise even though I knew that in those years the Civil War was won by the South, as to all but outright slavery. The last chapter relates how Reconstruction has been viewed by historians in show more the years since, and is the most interesting chapter in the book. show less

Review by on Amazon.com:
Mostly through the eyes of Adelbert Ames, the Civil War hero from Maine, who served as the Governor of Mississippi, the author tells about how the 14th and 15th Amendments were declared null and void. Through unremitting murder, brutality and terror by white vigilante groups, the weak kneed Northern occupiers eventually gave in to the southern brand of terror and insurrection, which the author refers to as the "last battle of the Civil War." Neighborhood and regional terror involving the most grotesque and inhuman violence was the motif that was spread across the region and led to a reversal of the Northern victory and a win of the Civil War for the South, a victory that still reverberates through American's show more race-based culture.

The subtext of the book is at least as important and as potent as are the details of the context. It makes clear that the real birth of the American nation occurred in the aftermath of the Civil War, when the South was Redeemed, in the ineptness and utter lack of commitment on the part of the Northern occupiers to protect what was important about the nation -- its laws and the Constitution against 911-styled terrorism. For the North, Reconstruction was just an overwhelming "mop-up" operation; for the South, it was existential, a matter of the survival of the white race and the southern way of life. show less