Reconstruction
Subject:
US History [1]
Tags:
reconstruction [12]
Max Breitmayer AP US 1st Period January 4, 2011 Reconstruction: The Second Civil War Forty Acres and a Mule On January 16th, 1865 William Tecumseh Sherman, a Union war general, issued ?Special Orders, No. 15? which guaranteed families of freed slave who fought in his army forty acres of tillable land, as well a mule. This plan was implemented as Union traveled through Southern territories; thousands of freed slaves joined their cause in the battle against the Confederacy. In actuality this plan was set up to handle the problem of repaying the mass of refugees. At this point in American history, land was plentiful and the Army had a surplus of unneeded mules, which the freed slaves could use for agricultural needs.