in 8th grade, i had to write a report pretending i was some guy from the north travelling down to the south for something right after the civil war. i hope this helps, u might have to read through it to get the info u want, but u can use any of it.
Recently, Congress sent me down to represent them in the South to see how the reconstruction of the South was going. I was unwilling to admit it, but the South suffered greatly, in economical ways, social, and even political ways.
As I travelled through the towns and fields, I noticed the destruction of war everywhere. The war tore up and trampled the cotton up in its fields; they were never given chanced to grow. Without this, the South has not livelihood. It will be a very long time before its former amount of produce is restored, if it ever is restored. There are now no slaves in the former Confederate states because of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Without the slaves, unless people are hired, the fields will never flourish as they did in the past. While the South is in devastation, we Northerners enjoy factories and the progressing railroads. It is almost as if we are two different worlds sharing the same continent.
As I walked down the remaining civilizations, I felt shunned. When I was spoken to, it was from angry Southerners expressing their hatred for the North and demanding that we do something to fix this chaos that we brought to them. I usually remained silent, although I was aching to shout back and say ‘we never would have come here if you had not seceded’. Another thing I noticed in both the North and the South, women and children are left without their husbands and fathers. Now that the war is over, they have been fired to make way for the soldiers returning home. Many families, especially in the South which was built on agriculture, are struggling for their survival.
The war we just fought did not just affect the South. We lost many Americans on both sides. In fact, this is the most men ever lost in our history. The war divided so many things, even Virginia was permanently torn in two. Families were fighting against families. This war should not be forgotten, it should remind us that though the other may be in the wrong, we should find other ways than violence and destruction.
As I travel back to the North, my mind races through how I should present the things I have seen and heard. If I should be on their side, then my fellow Northerners should oppress me. If I should support the South, they will still hate me because I am a Northerner. If I leave behind the destruction and death, and simply do nothing, then I would have no heart.
Finally, I decided: I believe that the South were wrong to own slaves and to secede. I also believe that we, the Northerners were wrong for raising our tariffs and dominating politics. We still oppress them now even after the war, that is the reason they hate us. Maybe, we should try to see this war through their eyes and help them. As Lincoln said before his recent assassination, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’. We have family in the South, and they are Americans and people just as we are, should we not help them?
