We're not talking about a war in progress. We're talking about a war that was over. The war ended with paroled soldiers going home to an occupied country full of defeated people. Yes, the occupiers could have done a lot more harm to these people, but they still harmed people none the less.

-I'm I grateful that the Northern occupiers were not worse or reconstruction was not ethnic cleansing like what happened to the Native Americans? Well of course.

-Could reconstruction have ended earlier? Yes.

-Was reconstruction necessary? No, it failed, miserably, and made the freedom for the slaves worse, made unification more difficult and economically depressed 1/3 of the nation for nearly a century. At a time when Southerners were ready to hang Jeff Davis, they made a martyr of him, and reversed anti-Confederate sentiment in the South.

-Did it matter if the presidents during this period were ex-Union officers or not? Not in my thinking. Didn't help the Indians, ex-slaves or ex-confederates any.

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David Upton