The Freedmen's Bureau, established by Congress in 1865, was born of the expansion of federal power during the Civil War and the Union's desire to protect and provide for the South's emancipated slaves. Established in Georgia during late 1865 and 1866, the Bureau was positioned to play a crucial role in the implementation of Reconstruction policy, translating directives, laws, and constitutional guarantees into the new reality promised by emancipation. In the end, however, the agency failed to leave a lasting impression on the state. Georgia's citizens were left to themselves to work out their new social, political, and economic arrangements. The ineffectiveness of the Bureau in Georgia and other southern states has often been blamed on the racism of its northern administrators, but the explanation of its failure is not so simple. Paul A. Cimbala shows a more complex picture of Reconstruction and the Bureau by examining the intellectual underpinnings of the men who ran the agency and how they organized their command, by exploring the personal stories of men who faced the problems of Reconstruction at the local level, by presenting a detailed account of the events that transpired along the Georgia coast in the Sherman Reservation, and by assessing the agency's work in education, relief, civil rights, and labor.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This is the finest, most detailed, most commonsensical study of the Freedmen's Bureau in any state that has ever been written."--Barry A. Crouch, author of The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Texans
"A detailed narrative, gracefully and engagingly written . . . This excellent piece of scholarship belongs among the best recent studies of the Reconstruction era."--History: Reviews of New Books
"Cimbala's in-depth look at the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia provides a useful corrective to those inclined to judge the bureau harshly."--Journal of American History
“Diligent primary source research, keen analysis, and a fine narrative style are blended here to produce the definitive work on the Bureau
. . . in Georgia."--Florida Historical Quarterly
. . . in Georgia."--Florida Historical Quarterly
"Cimbala gives us a valuable account of the workings of the Bureau on the local level in the agency's declining days."--Journal of Southern History
"Well-researched . . . A useful addition to Reconstruction scholarship."--American Historical Review
"One of the most balanced, objective, and detailed studies available on the subject.”--North Carolina Historical Review
"This is an excellent institutional history; indeed, it is the most detailed state study of the Freedman's Bureau to date."--H-CivWar
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From the Publisher
Winner of the Malcolm Bell, Jr., and Muriel Barrow Bell Award
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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