In the Spring of 1865, the Civil war was finally brought to an end. The five years of war was the nation's most devastating and wrenching experience. Although the Union was saved and slavery had ended, the South being defeated and occupied by union forces was ruined and in a state of disaster. Public structures, private homes, and farm buildings had been burnt, rail road tracks uprooted, cotton gins wrecked, and the earth scorched in many …showed first 75 words of 1983 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1983 total…suffered from economic inequality, mainly caused by sharecropping. With the lack of economic power,the African Americans lost political power as well. Most of them still worked for the whites. In the 1890's Jim Crow lawswhich made segregation began to rule southern life. But overall, Reconstruction didn't totally recover the South, but it did help to improve the South and was an important part in U.S. history since it still effects our lives today.