Massachusetts in The American Civil War - Aftermath and Reconstruction Era

Aftermath and Reconstruction Era

In all, 12,976 servicemen from Massachusetts died during the war, about eight percent of those who enlisted and about one percent of the state's population (the population of Massachusetts in 1860 was 1,231,066). Official statistics are not available for the number of wounded. Across the nation, organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) were established to provide aid to veterans, widows and orphans. Massachusetts was the first state to organize a state-wide Woman's Relief Corps, a female auxiliary organization of the GAR, in 1879.

With the war over and his primary goal completed, Governor Andrew declared in September 1865 that he would not seek re-election. Despite this loss, the Republican Party in Massachusetts would became stronger than ever in the post-war years. The Democratic party would be all but non-existent in the Bay State for roughly ten years due to their earlier anti-war platform. The group most affected by this political shift was the growing Boston Irish community, who had backed the Democratic Party and were without significant political voice for decades.

After the war, senators Sumner and Wilson would transform their pre-war antislavery views into vehement support for so-called "Radical Reconstruction" of the South. Their agenda called for civil rights for African Americans and harsh treatment of former Confederates.

For a time, the Radical Republicans made progress on their agenda of dramatic reform measures. According to historian Eric Foner, Massachusetts state legislators passed the first comprehensive integration law in the nation's history in 1865. On the national level, Sumner joined with Representative Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania and others to achieve Congressional approval of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, outlawing slavery and granting increased citizenship rights to former slaves.

As early as 1867, however, a national backlash against Radical Republicans and their sweeping civil rights programs made them increasingly unpopular, even in Massachusetts. When Sumner attempted in 1867 to propose dramatic reforms, including integrated schools in the South and re-distribution of land to former slaves, even Wilson refused to support him. By the 1870s, Radical Republicans had diminished in power and Reconstruction proceeded along more moderate lines.

Culturally speaking, post-Civil War Massachusetts ceased to be a national center of idealistic reform movements (such as evangelicalism, temperance and antislavery) as it had been before the war. Growing industrialism, partly spurred on by the war, created a new culture of competition and materialism.

In 1869, Boston was the site of the National Peace Jubilee, a massive gala to honor veterans and to celebrate the return of peace. Conceived by composer Patrick Gilmore, who had served in an army band, the celebration was held in a colossal arena in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood designed to hold 100,000 attendees and specifically built for the occasion. A new hymn was commissioned for the occasion, written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and set to American Hymn by Matthais Keller. Spanning five days, the event featured a chorus of nearly 11,000 and an orchestra of more than 500 musicians. It was the largest musical gathering on the continent up to that time.