War After the War: A New History of Reconstruction

By John Patrick Daly

Book Overview

The War after the War is a lively military history and overview of Reconstruction that illuminates the new war fought immediately after the American Civil War. This Southern Civil War was distinct from the American Civil War and fought between southerners for control of state governments. In the South, African American and white unionists formed a successful biracial coalition that elected state and local officials. White supremacist insurrectionaries battled with these coalitions and won the Southern Civil War, successfully overthrowing democratically elected governments. The repercussions of these political setbacks would be felt for decades to come.

With this book John Patrick Daly examines the political and racial battles for power after the Civil War, as white supremacist terror, guerrilla, and paramilitary groups attacked biracial coalitions in their local areas. The Ku Klux Klan was the most infamous of these groups, but ex-Confederate extremists fought democratic change in the region under many guises. The biracial coalition put up a brave fight against these insurrectionary forces, but the federal government offered the biracial forces little help. After dozens of battles and tens of thousands of casualties between 1865 and 1877, the Southern Civil War ended in the complete triumph of extremist insurrection and white supremacy. As the United States marks the 150th anniversary of the Southern Civil War, its lessons are more vital than ever.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820361909
• ISBN13: 9780820361901
• Release Date: June 2022
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A great honest history of Reconstruction

John Daly refers to the Reconstruction era as the Southern Civil War and convincingly argues the violence that encompassed the South upheld every aspect of what constitutes a civil war. Daly breaks the Southern Civil War into three distinct phases within the Reconstruction era. The Terror Phase immediately followed the Confederate surrender of 1865, the Guerrilla Phase, 1868-1872, with disguised violence and creation of the KKK and other extremist groups, and the Paramilitary Phase, 1873-1877, where Southern extremists openly inflicted violence without local, state, or federal prosecution. Daly highlights the fact that the tens of thousands of African Americans, Southern Unionists and Northern sympathizers which were tragically abused, murdered, and massacred have been neglected in Southern historical narratives, and he has exposed the dark realities of the Southern Civil War. With the supporting evidence Daly provides in The War after the War, Daly has a strong argument that the Southern Civil War didn’t end in 1877, but in the 1960’s with the Civil Rights movement. A great book for anyone interested in reading an honest history of what transpired in the South after the American Civil War.