Robert Selph Henry (1889–1970)

The coverage of this book is as the title says it is. It more or less repeats what the conventional wisdom of the day (ca. 1938) was: that Reconstruction started out well, but that a mixture of corruption and ignorance doomed the "Radical Republican"/"carpetbagger"/"scalawag" experiment. This is a thesis that has been challenged, to say the least, in recent years. Much of the book is given to the author's enjoyment of Republican in-fighting, with some discussion of economic growth (the author was a railroad executive by profession). The Klan seems to be, more or less, waved away as a brief, passing thing. Good if you want an idea of how the South was "redeemed," a phrase you're sure as hell not going to hear in this day and age. As history, though, mediocre. Gives you some idea of the "Birth of a Nation" mindset.… (meer)