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Who won the Civil War
power and economic status.
Socially the South triumphed in the post Civil War era. In conjunction with the aforementioned political happenings between the North and South, the South was still able to keep up slave like conditions years after the war ended. The freemen of the South were now being transformed from slaves to wage laborers by a man named General Benjamin F. Butler beginning in the year 1862. This new policy of Butler’s required that slaves remain on the plantation, where they would now receive very small wages for their work, while on a fixed schedule. Food and medical care was available for the old and or the sick. This system spanned throughout much of Louisiana and by 1864 there were more than 50,000 African American’s laboring daily on more than 1,500 plantations and they were all under contract. The contracts were required and supervised by the army and any wage laborer who did not sign one lost the ability of choosing where to work and would no longer receive pay. Instead the government relinquished the wages the laborer otherwise would have received at the years end. If one left before the one year mark from starting work was up they would not receive pay either. In other cases after the war, estate owners offered wages to the African American’s and then made them pay for food and a place to stay. These costs drove each who stayed on the plantation into debt, and they were not allowed to leave until the debt was paid off. Additionally, whites in the South banned together more than ever taking their “white pride” to a new level. At this point white skin had defined a social bond like no other making it so that even the poorest of the white men were superior to any black man no matter how prosperous or skilled he might be.
After reviewing the four areas; social, political, moral and economical both the North and South each equally achieved their goals set prior to the war that no winner is definitive. This further exemplifies that a victory must consist of more than one aspect than just “winning”. In looking back at how shocking a suggestion the South having won the Civil War might have seemed at first, the question didn’t change history, it has just changed the way you look at it.