Southern Carpetbaggers in the North: An Unexplored Aspect of Reconstruction History

FAIN: FT-14055-78

Daniel E. Sutherland
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (Fayetteville, AR 72701-1201)

This project will examine the ex-confederates who migrated to the north after the Civil War. Study will be concerned with their motives for going north, their experiences in Yankeedom, and their ultimate fates. Generally settling in urban areas of the Northeast and Midwest, southern carpetbaggers--defined as those men and women who, after supporting the Confederate cause from 1861 to 1865, moved North between 1865 and 1880 with the intention of permanent settlement-believed that northern economic and educational opportunities offered their quickest means of rebuilding shattered lives and fortunes.