by Christopher Lyle
McIlwain
The year 1865 is critically important to an accurate
understanding of Alabama’s present. In 1865 Alabama: From Civil War to
Uncivil Peace Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr. examines the end of the Civil
War and the early days of Reconstruction in the state and details what he
interprets as strategic failures of Alabama’s political leadership. The
actions, and inactions, of Alabamians during those twelve months caused many
self-inflicted wounds that haunted them for the next century.
McIlwain recounts a history of missed opportunities that had substantial and
reverberating consequences. He focuses on four factors: the immediate and
unconditional emancipation of the slaves, the destruction of Alabama’s
remaining industrial economy, significant broadening of northern support for
suffrage rights for the freedmen, and an acute and lengthy postwar shortage of
investment capital. Each element proves critically important in understanding
how present-day Alabama was forged.
Relevant events outside Alabama are woven into the narrative, including
McIlwain’s controversial argument regarding the effect of Lincoln’s
assassination. Most historians assume that Lincoln favored black suffrage and
that he would have led the fight to impose that on the South. But he made it
clear to his cabinet members that granting suffrage rights was a matter to be
decided by the southern states, not the federal government. Thus, according to
McIlwain, if Lincoln had lived, black suffrage would not have been the issue it
became in Alabama.
McIlwain provides a sifting analysis of what really happened in Alabama in 1865
and why it happened—debunking in the process the myth that Alabama’s problems
were unnecessarily brought on by the North. The overarching theme demonstrates
that Alabama’s postwar problems were of its own making. They would have been
quite avoidable, he argues, if Alabama’s political leadership had been savvier.
About the Author
Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr. is an attorney in
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who has spent the last twenty-five years researching
nineteenth-century Alabama, focusing particularly on law, politics, and the
Civil War. He is the author of Civil War Alabama.
ISBN 978-0817319533, University Alabama Press, © 2017,
Hardcover, 376 pages, Photographs & Illustrations, End Notes, Bibliography
& Index. $49.95. To Purchase the book click HERE.
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