The War's Immediate Aftershocks:
During the surrenders of the Confederate armies, there came an unusual spectacle when the previously-distinguished career of the actor, John Wilkes Booth, was marred by his participation in a plot targeting Abraham Lincoln, Secretary Stuart, and General Grant. This plot was exposed by Allan Pinkerton, leading to Booth fleeing the country along with some other Confederate diehards, as they head south to Brazil and declare themselves a Confederate government-in-exile.
As each Confederate army surrendered and was allowed to disband, outbreaks of violence directed at the slaves began, however Lincoln refused to tolerate them so soon after the end of the war, fearing that it could lead to re-starting it, particularly in the West. Extending to Generals Grant and Sherman a free hand, so to speak, to crack down the two organize effective crackdowns that temporarily nip Southern racial violence in the bud.
The nipping is only temporary, however Southern whites, upon seeing the return of the haggard survivors of the Army of Northern Virginia, are for a time shamed when an attempt to exclude a USCT veteran from communion is prevented by Generals Lee and Stuart, who both prevent another ugly incident. As political leaders in the North debate the extension of suffrage, political leaders in the South decide among themselves in letters that they are willing to accept suffrage only for blacks who fought for the Union armies, and then because they did defeat Confederate armies fairly.
A whole rationalization emerges in this, strengthened by the surrenders and crackdowns, whereby the large numbers of slaves who did not serve in combat had not shown themselves "independent" enough to serve. The 300,000 slaves in Northern and Southern states who had, however, had shown a tact and ability surpassing that of Northern whites, and hence had "earned" the suffrage.
Immeasurably strengthened by a Radical Vice-President and the triumphs of 1864 that ended the war by November, however, Radical leaders Stevens, Wade, and Sumner propose the "Joint Manifesto" calling for wide-sweeping land re-distribution, mass disfranchisement of Confederate leaders, and universal suffrage for blacks. While ex-Confederates will always be willing to extend suffrage to USCT, as the role of the Army of the James means they have no choice, the prospect of universal suffrage for all blacks provides a basis for Southern Democratic revival.
The political platforms these new movements have advocate "suffrage for only those Negroes who have shown themselves by meritorious actions worthy of deserving it. We, however, in all sense of the term reject the idea of universal suffrage for Negroes as we fear that it would lead to the degeneration of the white man in favor of the field hands who have shown none of the qualities sufficient to have justified this privilege."
By the time Waitie's army has surrendered, this political clash, focusing around leaders like Wade Hampton and Jubal Early against Stevens and Sumner, has already begun to monopolize national politics. The first symbolic act of unity, however, occurs when the US Congress, including the West Virginia and newly-accepted Nevadan and Franklin representatives and Senators votes to extend funds for a Trans-Continental Railroad.
Lincoln's advocacy of a full-scale Homestead Act becomes another key point of his Administration, as he seeks to extend the very society that so vindicated itself on the battlefield into the West, knowing the potential for clashes with Indian leaders is significant. And indeed, in 1865, the first stirrings of US power near the Powder River have begun to force Chief Red Cloud to seek arms and armaments from people willing to provide them.
In its first foreign policy since the end of the war, too, the Lincoln Administration decides to demand money from the British for damages caused by the commerce raiders constructed in Britain. The British Parliament naturally refuses, though this issue is not seen as a too-significant one at the time.
Overlooked by the great masses of people, North and South, amidst the immediate end to the war and the violence seen thus, such as the raids by the so-called outlaws who were all conveniently former Confederates who never officially disbanded, is the formation of a group called the Worker's League, which wishes to advocate for stronger worker's rights and to prevent another instance of "federal tyranny such as that seen in New York." Also overlooked at the time is the start of a slow schism of the abolitionist and the feminist movements, when prominent black leaders such as Frederick Douglass are willing to work for suffrage for black men over that of white women, causing an acrimonious scene in a late November joint meeting of the US Abolitionist Society.
For the time being, however, the great majority of blacks, North and South, take great pride in the Grand Review of the Federal Armies on New Year's Day of 1865, led by the Fighting 41st who had done so much to end the war. This moment becomes in later years symbolic of the great, revolutionary transformations unleashed by the secessionists of 1860, when three years earlier the Supreme Court had ruled blacks were not even citizens, to the year 1865 when a Federal regiment of black troops marched in picture-perfect discipline, having the fame of capturing the leaders of that army which for so many years had frustrated the Northern public and its political and military years.
