Reconstruction: The Second Civil War
Reconstruction: The Second Civil War(2004) This 2-part episode of the PBS American Experience series examines Reconstruction in the U.S. South in the decades after the Civil War. The documentary seems to be heavily based on Columbia University historian Eric Foner’s opus Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution. Foner appears frequently as an on-screen commentator, though a large number of other leading historians are also used in this capacity.
This film is a very good example of the current state of historiography on Reconstruction. In the early 20th century, many historians characterized Reconstruction as a dark chapter when corrupt Northerners and incompetent freedman ruled the South until White “redeemers” restored home rule to the South. By the mid 20th century, most historians turned this verdict on its head and cast Reconstruction as a noble experiment sabotaged by racism or even a conservative movement that ensured White Rule would be perpetuated in the South. In the late 20th century, the moral clarity of earlier interpretations gave way to postmodern ambiguity.
This film reflects the contemporary historiographical position—presenting Reconstruction as ambiguous “encounters” between different people with differing perspectives, each possessing their own limited agency. Hence, Reconstruction is not a discrete event but part of the ongoing “evolution” of Southern society.
Part 1 covers the first phase of Reconstruction, from debates over how the North should treat the surrendered Southern states, to President Johnson’s uneven and, to his critics, lenient handling of defeated Confederates, to the take-over of Reconstruction by “radical” Republicans in Congress intent on building a new South.
Part 2 examines Reconstruction as it was enacted in the South, how the North gradually retreated from its commitment to build a new South, and the consequences of Reconstruction on peoples’ lives and on later American history. This complicated historical period is made more comprehensible and accessible through recurring vignettes presenting the perspectives of actual individuals who lived through Reconstruction.
Memorable examples are a Georgia woman who inherits her father’s ruined plantation, Black freedman to fight to take their places in Southern legislatures and the U.S. Congress, a Union veteran who moves to Louisiana, and a Confederate veteran intent on resisting “carpetbagger rule” by any means necessary. (One of that Confederate veteran’s descendents appears as an on-screen commentator still arguing the rightness of his ancestor’s perspective.)
