Booktalk: Reconstruction

During January, a neighboring library requested to borrow, "Sequel to Appomattox" from us. I looked all over the place for that title, then remembered it was part of a 1920s Yale University series that I kept among our "emeritus" collection on top of the book cases. I let the library know I had more recent books about Reconstruction, but they took it any way.

Now, I am a sucker for palm-sized little books, and so when it was returned I read it myself; and I'm glad I did. The pages are oatmeal-colored with age and the paper is brittle, but the writing is lucid and the history thorough. Written when Civil War veterans were still about, it chronicles the mess that was Reconstruction with remarkable dispassion. For me, its value resides in illustrating the manipulated swings in public and political sentiment that charged that era with animosity, abuse, and wounds that would endure for a hundred years. Few of the motives behind legislation and actions seemed honorable. The author, Walter Fleming, used a less provocative assessment; calling such measures "narrow."

Then, in looking for sources for a student report on Harriet Tubman, I came upon our copy of , "Slavery Time, when I was chillun," a thin book of first-hand accounts of slaves. The dozen accounts were gleaned from hundreds conducted by a WPA project in 1936. They provided a good counterpoint to the scholarly perspective of Fleming's work. In many aspects it corroborated his insights about the unpreparedness and lack of guidance that slaves experienced when freedom came with its attendant abuses and flaws.

I see there are about forty volumes in the Yale series covering our history from early exploration through WWI. Perhaps I have my Summer reading set before me!