The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction

Civil War America

by William A. Blair

After the Civil War's end, reports surged of violence by Southern whites against Union troops and Black men, women, and children. While some in Washington, D.C., sought to downplay the growing evidence of atrocities, in September 1866, Freedmen's Bureau commissioner O. O. Howard requested that assistant commissioners in the readmitted states compile reports of murders and outrages to catalog the extent of violence, to prove that the reports of a peaceful South were wrong, and to argue in Congress for the necessity of martial law. What ensued was one of the most fascinating and least understood fights of the Reconstruction era--a political and analytical fight over information and its validity, with implications that dealt in life and death.

Here William A. Blair takes the full measure of the bureau's attempt to document and deploy hard information about the reality of the violence that Black communities endured in the wake of Emancipation. Blair uses the accounts of far-flung Freedmen's Bureau agents to ask questions about the early days of Reconstruction, which are surprisingly resonant with the present day: How do you prove something happened in a highly partisan atmosphere where the credibility of information is constantly challenged? And what form should that information take to be considered as fact?

Genres: History, American History, Politics, War, Civil War, American

182 pages, Paperback

Published September 21, 2021

About the author

William A. Blair is Walter L. and Helen P. Ferree professor emeritus of history at Penn State University.

Reviews

[CJ]

A short but powerful book about violence against black people and white union supporters in the Reconstruction Era-South, and how easily the truth can be ignored in the face of political struggles. This isn't a light read, but it's a valuable reminder that so many of the challenges we're facing right now are anything but new.

[Julia Segre]

Oh my god this was so so dry and boring and it sucks because I normally think this topic is interesting

[Anna]

Definitely one of the most readable books on early Reconstruction as well as an important story that needed to be told.