The Third Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War. [1] It comprised Georgia, Florida and Alabama and was headquartered in Atlanta. [2]
The district was originally commanded by General John Pope [3] until his removal by President Andrew Johnson on December 28, 1867, when General George Gordon Meade took his place. [4] Meade served at the current location of Fort McPherson until August 1868 after Alabama and Florida were re-admitted into the United States.
Because of the expulsion of Blacks from the Georgia legislature, a new and final military commander was appointed on December 22, 1869, General Alfred Terry. [5] In January, he returned the legislators and ousted 29 Democrats. In February, the Fourteenth amendment was ratified by Georgia and by July it was re-admitted into the Union.
Alfred Howe Terry was a Union general in the American Civil War and the military commander of the Dakota Territory from 1866 to 1869, and again from 1872 to 1886. In 1865, Terry led Union troops to victory at the Second Battle of Fort Fisher in North Carolina.
Henry Warner Slocum, Sr., was a Union general during the American Civil War and later served in the United States House of Representatives from New York. During the war, he was one of the youngest major generals in the Army and fought numerous major battles in the Eastern Theater and in Georgia and the Carolinas. While commanding a regiment, a brigade, a division, and a corps in the Army of the Potomac, he saw action at First Bull Run, the Peninsula Campaign, Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, Antietam, and Chancellorsville.
The Fifth Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South from 1867 to 1870. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War. It covered the states of Texas and Louisiana.
The Reconstruction Acts, or the Military Reconstruction Acts, were four statutes passed during the Reconstruction Era by the 40th United States Congress addressing the requirement for Southern States to be readmitted to the Union. The actual title of the initial legislation was "An act to provide for the more efficient government of the Rebel States" and was passed on March 4, 1867. Fulfillment of the requirements of the Acts was necessary for the former Confederate States to be readmitted to the Union from military and Federal control imposed during and after the American Civil War. The Acts excluded Tennessee, which had already ratified the 14th Amendment and had been readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866.
The Second Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War. It included the territories of North and South Carolina, and acted as the de facto military government of those states while a new civilian government was being re-established. It was headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina. Originally commanded by Major General Daniel Sickles, after his removal by President Andrew Johnson on August 26, 1867, Brigadier General Edward Canby took over command until both states were readmitted in July 1868.
Howell Cobb was an American and later Confederate political figure. A southern Democrat, Cobb was a five-term member of the United States House of Representatives and the speaker of the House from 1849 to 1851. He also served as the 40th governor of Georgia (1851–1853) and as a secretary of the treasury under President James Buchanan (1857–1860).
Wager Swayne was a Union Army colonel during the American Civil War and was appointed as the last major general of volunteers of the Union Army. Swayne received America's highest military decoration the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Second Battle of Corinth. He also was effectively the military governor of Alabama from March 2, 1867 to July 14, 1868 after the passage of the first Reconstruction Act by the U.S. Congress until Alabama was readmitted to the Union. Robert M. Patton remained the nominal governor during this period but as the local army commander, Swayne controlled the State government. During the Reconstruction era, Swayne oversaw the Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama and helped establish schools for African Americans in the state. He was the first person born after Alabama statehood, to govern the state.
Fort McPherson was a U.S. Army military base located in Atlanta, Georgia, bordering the northern edge of the city of East Point, Georgia. It was the headquarters for the U.S. Army Installation Management Command, Southeast Region; the U.S. Army Forces Command; the U.S. Army Reserve Command; the U.S. Army Central.
Joseph Roswell Hawley was the 42nd Governor of Connecticut, a U.S. politician in the Republican and Free Soil parties, a Civil War general, and a journalist and newspaper editor. He served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was a four-term U.S. Senator.
Alfred Holt Colquitt was an American lawyer, preacher, soldier, and politician. Elected as the 49th Governor of Georgia (1877–1882), he was one of numerous Democrats elected to office as white conservatives took back power in the state at the end of the Reconstruction era. He was elected by the Georgia state legislature to two terms as U.S. Senator, serving from 1883 to 1894 and dying in office. He had served as a United States officer in the Mexican-American War and in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, reaching the rank of brigadier general.
Thomas Howard Ruger was an American soldier and lawyer who served as a Union general in the American Civil War. After the war, he was a superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
The First Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War. It only included Virginia, and was the smallest of the five military districts in terms of size. The district was successively commanded by Brigadier General John Schofield (1867–1868), Colonel George Stoneman (1868–1869) and Brigadier General Edward Canby (1869–1870).
The Fourth Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War. It included the occupation troops in the states of Arkansas and Mississippi. At various times, the district was commanded by generals Edward Ord, Alvan Cullem Gillem, and Adelbert Ames.
At the end of the American Civil War, the devastation and disruption in the state of Georgia were dramatic. Wartime damage, the inability to maintain a labor force without slavery, and miserable weather had a disastrous effect on agricultural production. The state's chief cash crop, cotton, fell from a high of more than 700,000 bales in 1860 to less than 50,000 in 1865, while harvests of corn and wheat were also meager. The state government subsidized construction of numerous new railroad lines. White farmers turned to cotton as a cash crop, often using commercial fertilizers to make up for the poor soils they owned. The coastal rice plantations never recovered from the war.
Alfred Eliab Buck was a U.S. Representative from Alabama.
Cullen Andrews Battle was an American attorney, farmer, and politician. He was a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He fought Congressional Reconstruction after the war in Alabama then North Carolina.
The 83rd Indiana Infantry Regiment, sometimes called 83rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
George W. Ashburn was a Radical Republican assassinated by the Ku Klux Klan in Columbus, Georgia for his pro-African-American sentiments. He was the first murder victim of the Klan in Georgia.
The Department of the South was a military department of the United States Army that existed in several iterations in the 19th century during and after the American Civil War.
Following the end of the American Civil War, five Reconstruction Military Districts of the U.S. Army were established as temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department in the American South. The districts were stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War.