Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (Hardcover)

by Nicholas Lemann (Author)
Key Phrases: white posses, loyal leagues, President Grant, New Orleans, White Liners (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Historians agree that Reconstruction was a conflict in which the good guys lost. Lemann (The Promised Land) hammers the point home with a grim account of post–Civil War Mississippi. His central figure is Adelbert Ames, a Union general and war hero who fought to preserve the Union, despised abolitionists and considered African-Americans an inferior race. Appointed provisional governor of postwar Mississippi, he was horrified at the violence that whites, a minority, used against blacks trying to vote. As military commander, he provided enough security to ensure a Republican victory in 1869 state elections (blacks voted Republican until the 1930s), became an advocate of civil rights and was elected senator in 1870 and governor in 1873. He worked hard to protect the freedmen but failed, and Lemann's description of the terror campaign against Mississippi blacks makes depressing reading. The book's title refers to the popular version of Reconstruction in which valiant Southern whites "redeemed" their states from corrupt carpetbaggers and ignorant freedmen. Agreeing with recent scholars who consider this another Civil War myth, Lemann delivers an engrossing but painful account of a disgraceful episode in American history. (Sept.)
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From The New Yorker
In July, 1874, A. K. Davis, the black lieutenant governor of Mississippi, wrote to President Grant that "armed bodies of men are parading the streets" of Vicksburg and the authorities are "utterly unable to protect the lives and property of the Citizens"—by which he meant, primarily, black citizens. Vicksburg was the site of Grant's greatest victory; now, Lemann writes, "Vicksburg was, evidently, seceding all over again." Lemann's searing account of how Reconstruction was defeated points to what he calls a campaign of organized terrorism. Thousands of blacks were killed with impunity, as Southern whites gambled that Northerners would be less bothered by atrocities than by the redeployment of federal troops in the South. These Southerners also constructed the myth that they were "redeemers" and that Reconstruction collapsed of its own accord, and not in what was, as Lemann makes clear, a bloody regional fight over the rights of black citizens.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (September 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374248559
• ISBN-13: 978-0374248550
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #537,281 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the South Eventually Won the Civil War, December 10, 2006

By	Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Well, Nick Lemann has done it again. As he did in his groundbreaking and award winning book "The Promise Land," Professor Lemann has again burrowed deep beneath the surface of American culture into its undercurrents and subtext to mine more pure gold. Despite the fact that he is a Southerner, few historians of American culture exhibit the exquisite balance and honesty on the sensitive issue of race as does Nick Lemann. You can take his narratives of American history to the bank. He is the genuine article. Amen.

In this little gem, which will inevitably become a classic of American history, Lemann tells the story of what happened after the Civil war, in fact what happened after Reconstruction. He does so at eye level and in vivid color. He tells us of how the south was "redeemed," and how America became "One Racist White Nation Under God." Leaning heavily on WEB DuBois' work, but without the socialist over and undertones, Lemann makes no mistake about the fact that the radioactive fallout, the racist culture we have today, is nothing but the background noise from America's own Cosmic Big Bang, the Civil War.

Mostly through the eyes of Adelbert Ames, the Civil War hero from Maine, who served as the Governor of Mississippi, the author tells about how the 14th and 15th Amendments were declared null and void. Through unremitting murder, brutality and terror by white vigilante groups, the weak kneed Northern occupiers eventually gave in to the southern brand of terror and insurrection, which the author refers to as the "last battle of the Civil War." Neighborhood and regional terror involving the most grotesque and inhuman violence was the motif that was spread across the region and led to a reversal of the Northern victory and a win of the Civil War for the South, a victory that still reverberates through American's race-based culture.

The subtext of the book is at least as important and as potent as are the details of the context. It makes clear that the real birth of the American nation occurred in the aftermath of the Civil War, when the South was Redeemed, in the ineptness and utter lack of commitment on the part of the Northern occupiers to protect what was important about the nation -- its laws and the Constitution against 911-styled terrorism.

For the North, Reconstruction was just an overwhelming "mop-up" operation; for the South, it was existential, a matter of the survival of the white race and the southern way of life.

The north tried to solve the daunting post-Civil War problems by "making it up on the fly" but failed miserably. Their vacillation, ineptness, and lack of commitment as overseers did little more than stoked the fires that gave full expression to the terror underlying the sentiments of DW Griffith movie "Birth of a Nation." That sentiment, basically, was (and to a large extent still is): "Get your guns, the niggers are coming to get our white women."

So, in a real sense, this sentiment underlying DW Griffith's movie is the leitmotif of American culture, and as a result, is a more valid symbol of our nation's birth than is the Constitution, or the Revolutionary War. As Lemann makes clear in the unstated subtext of the book, the South in effect won the Civil War, and today we are still living in the afterglow of the background radiation of the terror that "redeemed" the South.

As an aside to the book, I was fortunate enough to see the C-span interview between Professor Lemann and some University of Maryland Professor, whose name I conveniently forgot. This professor did his best to twist the story in Redemption out of context and into another milquetoast cover story about the meaning of the Civil War and Reconstruction. To his credit, Lemann resisted and in his own diplomatic way, trampled the guy.

Five Stars

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Racists Win In Mississippi, September 9, 2006

By	C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Eric Foner in his "Reconstruction : America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877" (1988) wrote the definative account of the post-Civil War South. Mr. Lemann is focusing on one small rural state (Mississippi) in its struggles for racial equality during Reconstruction as opposed to Mr. Foner's big picture approach. In contrast to the images of vile carpetbaggers from "Gone with the Wind", it was southern whites terrorizing newly freed slaves to keep them from political power. The Union army was attempting to be the equalizer as it fought with the KKK, the White Line and other white supremacy groups. The author tends to idealize the Reconstruction politicians (like Adelbert Ames) and demonize the Southern whites (some of whom rightly earned demonization for their violence tactics). Still, it is a good read and a good story to know.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The End of Reconstruction, December 4, 2006

By	Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In order to place Nicholas Lemann's fine book "Redemption: the Last Battle of the Civil War" in context, a bit of background is necessary. With the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the United States faced the daunting tasks of reintegrating the defeated South into the Union and providing for the rights of the African Americans freed from slavery. The period from 1865 -- 1876 is generally described as the "Reconstruction" era, and it includes, broadly, three separate efforts at Reconstruction. The first, Presidential Reconstruction, involved Andrew Johnson's efforts to admit the Southern states on easy terms under its former leaders, with all the oppression of African Americans that this implied. Under Congressional Reconstruction, the military governed the defeated South, as Congress attempted as well to impeach Johnson for obstructing its policy. Congress provided for readmimission of the Southern States upon the adoption of Constitutions that provided African American men as well as white men the right to vote. Each of the Confederate States ultimately enacted a Congressionally-approved constitution and was readmitted to the Union, with an ever-diminishing role for Federal troops. The Reconstruction Era came to an end in 1876 with the disputed election of Rutherford B Hayes to the Presidency and the removal of the last of the Federal troops from the Southern States.

Now to Lemann's study. Lemann is the dean of the school of Journalism at Columbia University and the author of a number of earlier books, including, most importantly, "The Promised Land: the Great Black Migration and How it Changed America", the story of how African Americans migrated North in the mid-twentieth Century. His book, "Redemption" takes only a short glance at the early stages of Reconstruction. Its focus is on the final years of Reconstruction, 1873 -- 1875, in two States, Louisiana and Mississippi, and how events in these States set the stage for the end of Reconstruction and the ultimate "redemption" of the South through the reinstitution of white supremacy and Jim Crow.

The failed hero of Lemann's account is Adelbert Ames (1835 -- 1933). Ames served as a Union general in almost all the important battles of the Army of the Potomac, including Gettysburg. Following the war, he was appointed Military governor of Mississippi where he oversaw the adoption of Mississippi's constitution and its readmission to the Union. He married the daughter of another important Union General, Ben Butler, served as one of the first two senators of the readmitted State of Mississippi and became the Governor of Mississippi where he tried, under the standards prevailing at the time, to administer the State with honesty and probity and to protect the civil rights of the freed African Americans.

Ames was opposed by the organized Democratic party in Mississippi. More importantly, he was opposed by a group of terrorist, paramilitary organizations known as White Liners. The White Liners sought to intimidate African Americans from voting and exercizing their rights through harassment, terror, and murder. Lemann shows in detail how this occured in Louisiana and Mississippi with organized violence in both states particularly in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Ames looked to President Grant's administration for assistance in meeting the violence. Grant responded favorably at first. But under pressure from domestic politics and from advisors increasingly opposed to an aggressive stance on Reconstruction, Grant backed down and did not support Ames with the necessary military help. As a result, largely through terror and force, Republican government in Mississippi came to an end, Ames resigned under threat of impeachment from the new Democratic legislature, and the "Mississippi plan" of terror and white supremacy was adopted throughout the South. Lemann portrays the end of Reconstruction as a result both of White Liner terror tactics and of a failure of will and war-weariness in the North.

The Reconstruction Era remains among the most controversial in American history and its historiography likewise has been difficult. As Lemann points out, historians have been changing their view of Reconstruction from one critical of the endeavor and largely sympathetic to the defeated South and to efforts to promote an peaceful reunion of North and South to a view praising the Reconstruction effort and critical of the failure to carry it through and to protect the rights of African Americans. W.E.B. DuBois and, more recently, Eric Foner, are the scholars most responsible for the success of this later view of the Reconstruction period.

As with most difficult and broad questions, the last word on Reconstruction and its history has not yet been said. But Lemann tells the story of the little-known final days of Reconstruction in Mississippi and Louisiana well, with ample documentation, and with telling effect. Those reading this book will benefit from some prior background in Civil War history and in the Reconstruction Era. Lemann poignantly tells the story of our country's "unfinished business" resulting from the failure of Reconstruction.

Robin Friedman