Reconstruction
At war's end the devastation and disruption in every part of the state was dramatic. Wartime damage, the inability to maintain a labor force without slavery, and miserable weather had a disastrous effect on agricultural production. The states chief money crop, cotton, fell from a high of more than 700,000 bales in 1860 to less than 50,000 in 1865, while harvests of corn and wheat were also meager. After the war, the state subsidized construction of numerous new railroad lines. Use of commercial fertilizers increased cotton production in Georgia's upcountry, but the coastal rice plantations never recovered from the war.
At the beginning of the period of Reconstruction, Georgia had over 460,000 freedmen. Slaves had been 44% of the state's population in 1860.
In January 1865, William T. Sherman issued Special Field Orders, No. 15 authorizing federal authorities to confiscate abandoned plantations in the Sea Islands and redistribute land in smaller plots to former slaves. Later that year, after succeeding Lincoln in the presidency, Andrew Johnson revoked the order and returned the plantations to their former owners.
After the Civil War, many former slaves moved from rural areas to Atlanta, where economic opportunities were better. There, they established their own communities. Other migrations involved blacks moving from plantations to adjacent small towns and communities. A new federal agency the Freedmen's Bureau helped blacks negotiate labor contracts, and set up schools and churches.
Andrew Johnson's decision to restore the former Confederate states to the Union, without requirements for political change, was criticized by Radical Republicans in Congress. In March 1867, Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act to place the South under military occupation and rule. Along with Alabama and Florida, Georgia was included in the Third Military District, under the command of General John Pope. Military rule lasted less than a year and involved holding elections in which black men could vote for the first time. The electoral role in 1867 included 102,000 eligible white men, and 99,000 eligible blacks. Radical Republicans in Congress required ex-Confederates to take an ironclad oath of loyalty or be prevented from holding office. The legislature was controlled by a coalition of newly enfranchised freedmen, Northerners (carpetbaggers), and white Southerners(disparagingly called scalawags). The latter were mostly former Whigs who had opposed secession.
The voters elected delegates to write a new constitution in 1868; 20% of the delegates were black. In July 1868, the newly elected General Assembly ratified the Fourteenth Amendment; a Republican governor, Rufus Bullock, was inaugurated, and Georgia was readmitted to the Union. The state's Democrats, including former Confederate leaders Robert Toombs and Howell Cobb, convened in Atlanta to denounce Reconstruction. Theirs was described as the largest mass rally held in Georgia. In September, white Republicans joined with the Democrats in expelling all thirty-two black legislators from the General Assembly. Angered at black holding powerful roles in the legislature and at the county level, some ex-Confederates organized paramilitary groups, especially the Ku Klux Klan. Freedmen's Bureau agents reported 336 cases of murder or assault with intent to kill perpetrated against freedmen across the state from January 1 through November 15 of 1868.
In 1868, under Reconstruction, Georgia became the first state in the South to implement the convict lease system. It generated revenue for the state by leasing out the prison population, many of whom were black, to work for private businesses and citizens. Prisoners did not receive income for their labor. In this manner, railroad companies, mines, turpentine distilleries and other manufacturers supplemented their workforce with unpaid convict labor. This helped to hasten Georgia's transition to industrialization. Under the convict release system, employers were legally obliged to provide humane treatment to the laborers. However, some mistreatment was reported. One prominent beneficiary of this system was the Republican jurist and politician Joseph E. Brown, whose railroads, coal mines and iron works supplemented their workforce with convict labor.
The activity of political groups opposed to Reconstruction prompted Republicans and others to call for the return of Georgia to military rule. Georgia was one of only two ex-Confederate states to vote against Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election of 1868. In March 1869, the state legislature defeated ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.
That same month, the U.S. Congress, citing election fraud, barred Georgia's representatives from taking their seats. This culminated in military rule being re-imposed in December 1869. In January 1870, Gen. Alfred H. Terry, the final commanding general of the Third District, purged the General Assembly of ex-Confederates. He replaced them with Republican runners-up and reinstated expelled black legislators. This militarily imposed General Assembly had a large Republican majority.
In February 1870, the newly constituted legislature ratified the Fifteenth Amendment and chose new Senators to send to Washington. On July 15, Georgia became the last former Confederate state readmitted into the Union. After military rule ended, Democrats won commanding majorities in both houses of the General Assembly. Some Reconstruction-era black legislators held on to their seats, the last one serving until 1907. Under threat of impeachment, Republican governor Rufus Bullock fled the state.
Read more about this topic: History Of Georgia (U.S. State)