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After Appomattox: How the South Won the War
"Along with his wonderful abilities as a writer and scholar, Stetson possesses enormous courage, social involvement, and a big heart. . . . He's a brave man, of great conscience, and ought to be accorded a seat alongside Patrick Henry and other great freedom fighters."--Alan Lomax, Association for Cultural Equity "Throws a clear light on events of the post-Civil War era as they relate to current divisions of class and race in contemporary society. Kennedy's interpretation runs against that of many other scholars, but certainly it is well supported and coherent and has the added force of strong argument."--Patricia Waterman, University of South Florida
Stetson Kennedy's premise--argued and documented here as never before--is that the verdict of Appomattox was largely reversed during Reconstruction. The determined southern oligarchy, he says, wrenched political and cultural victory out of military defeat.
In this dramatic contribution to the history of Reconstruction, Kennedy brings to light thirty-three "long-buried" testimonials from victims and perpetrators of Ku Klux Klan terror that were taken by a Joint Congressional Committee in 1871-72. They form the core of this account of the decade following the Civil War, which Kennedy describes as a period of "Holocaust, demagoguery, chicanery, fraud, and psychological warfare that culminated in the Deal of 1876."
That "deal," struck between Democrats and Republicans in a smoke-filled room of the Wormsley Hotel in Washington, D.C., essentially revoked the unconditional surrender of the South at Appomattox. It gave Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the victory in the disputed presidential election of 1876 in return for the withdrawal of federal troops from the southern states, and Kennedy contends that it diluted the power of the hard-won 14th and 15th Amendments and led to the imposition of the Jim Crow system after Reconstruction.
Work on After Appomattox began with Kennedy's discovery of thirteen volumes of testimony--given to a Senate committee by former slaves--housed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the New York Public Library. The interviews--chilling, heartbreaking, and plain-spoken--describe how "the black and white targets of the Klan terror chose not to arm themselves or bond together for protection, counterattack, or counterterrorism. They simply stood as individuals against their tormentors, and, for refusing to renounce their rights, were often killed." Citing the testimony of one former slave, undeterred from voting by a near-fatal flogging, he quotes, "I can be strong in a good cause." Stetson Kennedy is the author of Palmetto Country, Southern Exposure, The Klan Unmasked, and Jim Crow The Way It Was , all reissued in paperback by UPF. He has received numerous honors recognizing his work for peace and racial equality, from the Negro Freedom Rally People's Award in 1947 to the 1991 Cavallo Foundation Award for civic courage.
The grandson of a Confederate officer, he is a native of Florida and lives in Jacksonville.
Stetson Kennedy's premise--argued and documented here as never before--is that the verdict of Appomattox was largely reversed during Reconstruction. The determined southern oligarchy, he says, wrenched political and cultural victory out of military defeat.
In this dramatic contribution to the history of Reconstruction, Kennedy brings to light thirty-three "long-buried" testimonials from victims and perpetrators of Ku Klux Klan terror that were taken by a Joint Congressional Committee in 1871-72. They form the core of this account of the decade following the Civil War, which Kennedy describes as a period of "Holocaust, demagoguery, chicanery, fraud, and psychological warfare that culminated in the Deal of 1876."
That "deal," struck between Democrats and Republicans in a smoke-filled room of the Wormsley Hotel in Washington, D.C., essentially revoked the unconditional surrender of the South at Appomattox. It gave Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the victory in the disputed presidential election of 1876 in return for the withdrawal of federal troops from the southern states, and Kennedy contends that it diluted the power of the hard-won 14th and 15th Amendments and led to the imposition of the Jim Crow system after Reconstruction.
Work on After Appomattox began with Kennedy's discovery of thirteen volumes of testimony--given to a Senate committee by former slaves--housed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the New York Public Library. The interviews--chilling, heartbreaking, and plain-spoken--describe how "the black and white targets of the Klan terror chose not to arm themselves or bond together for protection, counterattack, or counterterrorism. They simply stood as individuals against their tormentors, and, for refusing to renounce their rights, were often killed." Citing the testimony of one former slave, undeterred from voting by a near-fatal flogging, he quotes, "I can be strong in a good cause." Stetson Kennedy is the author of Palmetto Country, Southern Exposure, The Klan Unmasked, and Jim Crow The Way It Was , all reissued in paperback by UPF. He has received numerous honors recognizing his work for peace and racial equality, from the Negro Freedom Rally People's Award in 1947 to the 1991 Cavallo Foundation Award for civic courage.
The grandson of a Confederate officer, he is a native of Florida and lives in Jacksonville.
331 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
136 people want to read
About the author
Stetson Kennedy
12 books15 followersWilliam Stetson Kennedy (October 5, 1916 – August 27, 2011) was an American author, folklorist, and human rights activist. He is remembered for having infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, exposing its secrets to authorities and the outside world.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 27, 2017
This book was really interesting. I new Reconstruction didn't work, but I never fully grasped the extent of the failure. Mr. Kennedy included a number of testimonials from Congressional hearings during 1871-72. It was really gripping to read actual accounts of themselves and neighbors being attacked, whipped, driven out, etc. by the Klan. It was especially gripping in how matter-of-fact many of them were about what had been done to them. It said a lot about the times and social realities they lived in.
December 23, 2020
After Appomattox is the story of the Reconstruction years, 1865-1876, and how ultimately the North lost the enthusiasm for and interest in the promises made to southern blacks during and immediately after the Civil War. Or, as Kennedy puts it so succinctly, "The nation had evidently made up its mind that, so long as the South remained inside the Union and did not go back into the business of buying and selling blacks, it could do what it damned well pleased with them" (p. 237). Certainly there would be no 40 acres and a mule.
Indeed, After Appomattox is the sobering (and sordid) story of complicity and outright racism at the highest levels of government and the inheritance such individuals bequeathed this country for generations to come. Andrew Johnson, in one of his finer moments (of which there were to be enough for Congress to impeach him), sent a messenger south to inform the generals stationed there that the president was "for a white man's government, and in favor of free white citizens controlling the country" (p. 45).
Although General Grant - and later President Grant - fought such men doggedly, the tide of racism throughout the country and into the highest reaches of government was simply too strong. In 1876, in a deal that secured Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency by a single electoral vote, the highest and mightiest in the land reached a deal by where the federal government would, essentially, no longer intercede in state matters. The result, Kennedy notes, was as though it was Grant who had surrendered to Lee at Appomattox and not the other way around. To say nothing of the fact that the deal of '76 also set the stage for nearly a century of the repression of and brutality against blacks.
Indeed, After Appomattox is the sobering (and sordid) story of complicity and outright racism at the highest levels of government and the inheritance such individuals bequeathed this country for generations to come. Andrew Johnson, in one of his finer moments (of which there were to be enough for Congress to impeach him), sent a messenger south to inform the generals stationed there that the president was "for a white man's government, and in favor of free white citizens controlling the country" (p. 45).
Although General Grant - and later President Grant - fought such men doggedly, the tide of racism throughout the country and into the highest reaches of government was simply too strong. In 1876, in a deal that secured Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency by a single electoral vote, the highest and mightiest in the land reached a deal by where the federal government would, essentially, no longer intercede in state matters. The result, Kennedy notes, was as though it was Grant who had surrendered to Lee at Appomattox and not the other way around. To say nothing of the fact that the deal of '76 also set the stage for nearly a century of the repression of and brutality against blacks.
March 17, 2024
This is a powerful account of how white supremacists in the 1870s "won" the contest over the status of Black Americans through the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and the willingness of the North to look away as Southern states took away rights that had supposedly been secured by the 14th and 15th Amendments to the constitution.
It is notable that a race-based rift in American society that still exists today was established in slavery times, led to open conflict in the Civil War, and continued to define the country and its history throughout.
It is notable that a race-based rift in American society that still exists today was established in slavery times, led to open conflict in the Civil War, and continued to define the country and its history throughout.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews