Sheridan's Secret Mission: How the South Won the War After the Civil War

by Robert Cwiklik Narrated by Rick Adamson

Overview

An impeccably researched, character-driven narrative history recounting the fascinating late-Reconstruction Era mission of General Philip Sheridan, a Union hero dispatched to the South 10 years after the Civil War to protect the rights of newly freed black men, who were under siege by violent paramilitary groups like the White league intent on erasing their postwar gains.

On New Year's Eve 1874, Sheridan made a splash on his arrival in New Orleans. Accompanied by family and friends, he claimed to be on vacation and bound for Cuba. In reality, he was in the Crescent City on behalf of President Ulysses S. Grant, who had asked him to undertake a vital mission: to investigate the activities of violent vigilante groups menacing the rights of former slaves, or freedmen.

Grant had been alarmed as Southern white paramilitaries staged a flurry of attacks against freedmen in recent months to neutralize their political clout. The citizenship and voting rights of former slaves were among the most consequential fruits of the Union's Civil War victory. Republicans were now reckoning with the possibility that outlaw gangs like the White League, made up mostly of former Confederate soldiers and winked at by Democratic officials, could turn back the clock and consign freedmen to an existence little better than slavery. A few days after Sheridan's arrival in New Orleans, Democrats, apparently assisted by White League operatives, seized control of the state House of Representatives through trickery and violence. After federal soldiers stationed nearby ushered several Democratic claimants to office out of the House chamber, at the request of the Republican governor, Sheridan publicly denounced the “spirit of defiance to all lawful authority” in Louisiana and threatened to round up White League leaders to face trial before military tribunals. Many Northern newspapers condemned Sheridan's actions and those of the federal troops; some called for Grant's impeachment.

This dramatic clash lies at the heart of Robert Cwiklik's revelatory new history, which spans a series of tragic episodes of racial terror in the post-Civil War South that contributed to the overthrow of Reconstruction Era protections for black rights. Deeply researched and replete with startling details, the book sheds an essential light on the history of racial oppression in America and resonates powerfully with our contemporary ""post-racial"" condition.

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, politics, and the ongoing struggle for racial justice.

It would make a great gift for history buffs and teachers alike.

HarperCollins 2024

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"In Sheridan’s Secret Mission Robert Cwiklik describes in often chilling detail how the South may have lost the Civil War, but it won the next one, a guerrilla war to derail Reconstruction and hold blacks back another hundred years. It’s as enlightening as it is appalling." — John Strausbaugh, author of City of Sedition: The History of New York City During the Civil War

"Cwiklik's fast-paced narrative takes us on a harrowing journey into the aftermath of the Civil War, a largely forgotten period when the White League and other Klan-like organizations dominated the South. It was a time when threats and intimidation gave way to violence and murder as the nation, weary of Reconstruction, averted its eyes from the disenfranchisement and outright persecution of former slaves. It's a story of horrifying atrocities, arrogant villains, and compelling and tragic heroes. A stunning read." — Ben Cleary, author of Searching for Stonewall Jackson

"Anyone who thinks polarization is a recent phenomenon in American history ought to read this searing, necessary book. We have been taught that Reconstruction was a failure. In fact, it succeeded so well in bringing formerly enslaved Black people toward equality that it led to a racist backlash that has never ended. In calm, dispassionate prose, Cwiklik zeroes in on one episode of violence and the efforts of the federal government to right horrific wrongs. . . . the story told in Sheridan’s Secret Mission, and the ultimate failure of that mission, points toward the political turmoil we face today." — Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World and Revolution Song

"With propulsive storytelling and quiet conviction, Cwiklik throws open a door on an essential but little-known moment in American history. Better angels in New Orleans tried to protect the rights of freed blacks after the Civil War, only to see the movement crushed by a savage surge of white supremacy. This is history at its best: passionate, surprising, blazingly relevant, and contagiously readable." — Neil King, author of American Ramble

"Meticulous and propulsive. . . . Readers will be engrossed." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A deeply researched, narrative history recounting the little-known late-Reconstruction era mission of General Philip Sheridan, a Union Army hero dispatched to the South ten years after the Civil War to protect the rights of newly freed Black citizens, who were under siege by violent paramilitary groups like the White League intent on erasing their postwar gains." — Next Big Idea Club

"An impeccably researched, character-driven narrative history recounting the fascinating late-Reconstruction Era mission of Gen. Philip Sheridan, a Union hero dispatched to the South 10 years after the Civil War to protect the rights of newly freed Black men who were under siege by violent paramilitary groups like the White League, intent on erasing their postwar gains." — Jacksonville Journal-Courier

Kirkus Reviews

2023-10-13
A sobering history of the failure of Reconstruction in the defeated former Confederacy.

Philip Sheridan (1831-1888), writes Cwiklik, was no icon of civil rights: “He shared most of the prejudices against black people harbored by white Americans in those days.” He was, however, a fierce unionist, as well as the designer of several scorched-earth campaigns against the secessionists during the Civil War. It was for that reason that Ulysses S. Grant sent Sheridan to Texas and Louisiana under the cover of a pleasure tour in order to report on the progress of Reconstruction. There was much to report, for even as Black Americans were entering government, they were being terrorized by the newly formed KKK and the far less secretive White League, a “paramilitary group unhinged by black voting and officeholding.” The White League stormed New Orleans, murdering Black police officers, and they executed some 70 Black militiamen captured in western Louisiana. Sheridan filed a widely circulated report denouncing the killers as “banditti,” and Grant prepared to send in federal troops. However, “at every turn,” Cwiklik writes, quoting Grant, “obstacles had been thrown in the way of federal efforts to prosecute the killers, while ‘so-called conservative’ newspapers ‘justified the massacre’ and denounced U.S. law enforcement officials as agents of ‘tyranny’ and ‘despotism.’ ” It didn’t help that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of states’ rights on matters of voting, thus limiting federal jurisdiction and effectively disempowering Reconstruction. This ruling allowed the Confederacy to remain alive, at least in theory, a matter that’s playing out in the government today as white supremacists in power seek to limit civil rights. Grant later rued the “death by suffocation” of laws meant to secure Black rights as one of the great failures of his time in office.

A timely contribution to the history of Reconstruction and civil rights.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159687296
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/16/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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