For the week of August 5-11
August 5
1865—President Andrew Johnson reverses an order giving land abandoned or confiscated from slave-owning Whites to former Black slaves. The order—Special Field Order #15—had been issued in January by conquering Union Major General William T. Sherman as he and his troops marched through the South. Over 40,000 ex-slaves had received over 400,000 acres of land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. But after Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson reversed the order and returned the land to the Whites. Johnson, a Southerner, did much to reverse the policies of Lincoln and stifle progress for Blacks. Indeed, an argument can be made that President Johnson had a more negative post-Civil War impact on Black progress than any president in American history.
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