"The Occupation Was the Consequence, Not the Cause, of Southern Resistance"

"The brilliance of Downs' argument is that he steals the central complaint of the apologists, yet reverses the conclusion: The federal government was overzealous—and that was a good thing. Congress had to impose martial law in order for blacks to gain basic freedoms. If military officers sometimes vacated racist local laws, if they removed ruthless sheriffs and judges, if they tried white supremacists in unfair military tribunals—all of which they did—they did so for necessary ends. Equality would come to the South no other way."


Eric Herschthal in Slate reviews Gregory P. Downs's After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War.


And Downs explains Reconstruction as a continuation of war in The New York Times.