What Happened When a Confederate Soldier Came Home?

When a Confederate soldier walked home after Appomattox, he often found only a chimney where his house had been. This is what was waiting for him: the land, the money and the system the South ran on, all gone at once - and what a man does when he has walked all that way to nothing. 0:00 The gate 1:40 The walk home 3:54 The land 8:31 The money 10:24 The foundation 13:25 Starting over 16:34 The ones who kept walking 19:46 The reckoning Sources to check: Grant's Personal Memoirs (Appomattox terms, horses and mules); Sherman's report on the Savannah campaign (Jan 1865); Sheridan's report to Grant, 7 Oct 1864; Mississippi's 1866 artificial-limb appropriation; the Fourteenth Amendment, section 4; Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone Speech (21 Mar 1861); secession declarations of Mississippi, Georgia and Texas; Special Field Order No. 15 (Jan 1865); President Johnson's Amnesty Proclamation (29 May 1865); Freedmen's Bureau records; the Confederados of Brazil (Americana, Sao Paulo). Music: "Gymnopedie No. 2" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Past Sadness" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Disquiet" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Clean Soul" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Rains Will Fall" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Promises to Keep" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Ambience: Mixkit (free licence)