Sherman Argumentative Essay

In 1860 the race for executive office was in full swing. Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln competed against Southern Democrat John C.Breckinridge, John Bell and Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln was well liked throughout the North, but Southerners were not big fans of his. In the end Abraham Lincoln won the election becoming the 16th President of the United States without any support from southern Americans. As a result of his victory Southern states like Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana and many others succeeded from the Union leading to the creation of the Confederacy. Tensions were high and on April 12th, 1861 an attack erupted on Fort Sumter in the South Carolina Bay. The attack began the spark which ignited the Civil War. The
As soon as the Civil War would end his promise would hopefully be put into law. African Americans could finally be able to own land. Majority of them had no way of buying land, so this plan Sherman came up with was better than nothing, “Northern philanthropists helped some freedmen buy land. But for most ex-slaves the purchase of land was impossible. Few of them had money, and even if they did, whites often refused to sell” (Murrin, 446). While these men were guaranteed land a governmental agency the Freedmen's Bureau assisted freed slaves in the south. They wouldn't have to work in cruel conditions, and families could live together rather than being split up. The land they’d obtain extended far. General Sherman states in his orders that, “The islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice-fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. John’s River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States” (Forty Acres and a Mule: Special Order No. 15). Men who joined the Union in battle would be rewarded land set aside for them. African Americans used to be property, but now they’d have