Hogue characterizes Reconstruction as a continuation of civil war, waged between wellorganized and wellarmed forces vying to control internal governments, He details five key New Orleans street battles, in which elite Confederate veterans played central roles, and gives an indepth account of how the Republican state government raised militias and a state police force to defend against the violence.
In response, a white supremacist movement arose in the mids and finally overthrew the Republicans, The occupation of Louisiana by federal troops fromtowas the longest of its kind in American history, Not coincidentally, Hogue argues, one of the longest unbroken periods of onerace, oneparty dominance in American history followed,
lasting until,
Uncivil War reveals that the longterm military impact of the South's occupation included twentyfive years of crippled War Department budgets inflicted by southern congressmen who feared another Reconstruction.
Within Louisiana, the biracial Republican militias were dismantled, leaving blacks largely unarmed against future atrocities at the same time, the nucleus of the state's White Leagues became the Louisiana National Guard, which defended the Redeemer government's repressive labor policies.
White supremacist victory cast its shadow over American race relations for almost a century,
Moving between national, state, and local realms, Uncivil War demystifies the interplay of force and politics during a complex period of American history.
About the Author:
James K, Hogue is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,