JMH #96: Three people were opposed to Reconstruction. They had a plan to
avoid Reconstruction in its entirety. Their names? Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Simpson Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. Their plan would have worked had it not been for John Wilkes Booth.

The Reconstruction Act of 1867 was blatantly unconstitutional. It lasted only because there were no civilian federal courts in the former confederacy in which to
challenge its provisions. The absence of courts was deliberate.

Henry Wirz, commandant of Andersonville should not have been hanged. He was a bungler, not a beast. The one who should have been hanged was the God-damnewd Yankee Son-of-a-Bitch who ran Camp Douglas outside Chicago. He deliberately, wilfully and with malice aforethought starved prisoners to death as well as torturing them to death.

There would have been mass retaliation against Confederates had not Lincoln, Grant and Sherman (as agreeed upon) arranged the terms of their surrender so as to preclude all that. Their efforts were reinforced by Samuel P. Chase, (recently appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) who ordered Jefferson Davis released from custody, pointing out that there was no law under which he could be prosecuted.

And if you will read Angelo Codavilla with your eyes open you will find that reconstruction was a conspiracy, well advanced in the 1850s before the outbreak of hostilities. Those Americans behind such a plot, along with certain Europeans,
were the brains and financing of the agents provacateur known as Knights of the Golden Circle. In turn it was the KGC that used both bribery and fear to stampede southerners into a rash attempt at secession. It was Southron shortcomings that were exploited to be sure, but the deliberate evil agitation did NOT originate in Dixie.

Reconstruction was a lawless kleptocracy that should have been avoided and whose excesses were stopped short of being a reign of terror only by the efforts of those
who would have avoided it if they could have. That and a little Divine Intervention as well, I would imagine.

The fact that the error was not repeated in 1945 and thereafter can most certainly
be traced to lessons learned almost a century earlier. And even then, we rather narrowly avoided a replay in the form of that ungodly Morgenthau Plan.

And if you want to know why old Johnny Rebs never became “Werewolves” like those who pestered Germany for some years, look up how Uncle Billy assisted Richard Coke
(Brigidaier General CSA) in getting elected Governor of Texas, nullifying reconstruction in that state and re-assembling Texas Rangers. Then check out the make up of McKenzies Fourth Cavalry in that decisive Southern Column of 1874.

HURRAH FOR THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG THAT BEARS A SINGLE STAR!