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Secret Compromise: The North abandons Reconstruction in a secret political deal.
Introduction: After a bloody Civil War, Americans fight about how to rebuild the nation. Chaos: Southern planters and liberated slaves are thrown into chaos as Union victory nears. Revolution on the Land: The Federal government allots abandoned plantation acreage to freed slaves as Southern whites face defeat. Uncertainty: After President Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson takes office amid deep uncertainty. Cultivating Liberty: Activist Tunis Campbell and former slaves start self-sufficient lives in Georgia. Freedmen's Bureau Agent: Union veteran Marshall Twitchell moves to an isolated, battle-hardened Confederate district. 'White Men Alone': President Johnson plans to restore the Union quickly with few changes to the social order. An Independent Black Community: Tunis Campbell's black settlement establishes schools and bans whites from the island. Losses and Reconciliation: As Southerners return home to catastrophic losses, the president pardons planters and returns their lands. Slavery Without the Chain: To rebuild their cotton economy, Southern whites force black submission. Opportunity: Yankee Marshall Twitchell and Southerner Adele Coleman marry, over her family's objections. War in Congress: Deep rifts divide Washington as Congress passes the first law to protect civil rights. Radical Reconstruction: Shocked by Southern violence, Northerners support military governance and black suffrage. Citizens at Last: White Southerners' sense of injustice and fear of vengeance grow as black men obtain the vote. Credits Introduction: As Abraham Lincoln warned, Reconstruction is a task 'fraught with great difficulty.' Interracial Democracy: Black suffrage is imposed in the South, though blacks cannot vote in many Northern states. Sharecropping: Landowner Fan Butler negotiates new labor arrangements with her former slaves. Carpetbagger: Southerners start to view Northerners like Marshall Twitchell with suspicion. 'Let Us Have Peace.': As racial conflicts continue, Ulysses Grant gains the presidency by promising reconciliation. The New Order of Things: Republican legislators like former slave John Lynch introduce new services -- and new taxes. War of Terror: Secret groups like the Ku Klux Klan form to attack black political power with violence. Seeking Profit: Southern whites and blacks struggle to gain political power and forge a workable economy. A New South: The Federal government cracks down on violence, and Grant's re-election promises more change. The Lost Cause: The nation loses patience for the plight of Southern blacks as whites take back power. The Coushatta Massacre: President Grant makes an unpopular decision to send troops South to suppress an insurrection. Ideals and Intimidation: Congress passes a visionary civil rights bill, but Southern vigilantes continue their violence. At War: White vigilantes in Coushatta, Louisiana try to kill Marshall Twitchell. Secret Compromise: The North abandons Reconstruction in a secret political deal. Looking Back: By 1913, Reconstruction is widely viewed as a mistake, though its progressive legacy will endure. Credits
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NARRATOR
After ten tumultuous years, Reconstruction died in 1877 in a back-room deal in Washington. The outcome of the presidential election the year before had been bitterly disputed. The two parties came to a secret compromise. Southern Democrats agreed to accept a Republican in the White House. In return, the Republicans agreed to abandon Reconstruction.

WALKER
The whole Civil War and Reconstruction process had been characterized by a deep ambivalence on the part of the North. And that ambivalence by 1870s, by the late 1870s, has crystallized into, "Let's cut our losses and get out. And the best thing is to leave this to the people who know best how to handle it."

NARRATOR
B.W. Marston took Marshall Twitchell's seat as state senator.

MARSTON
The North won the war. In northwest Louisiana, we won Reconstruction.

NARRATOR
On April 24, 1877, a crowd lined the streets of New Orleans, as the last of the federal troops stationed there marched towards the steamship that would take them away. The cheers were deafening. Someone let out a rebel yell. The retreat of the North left blacks across the South feeling betrayed and deeply in danger.

WALKER
You fight a bloody war, and you set people on the road to freedom, and then when they make an effort to establish themselves, that road is pulled out from under them and they are left to the people who are their enemies.

NARRATOR
Marshall Twitchell moved back to Vermont. Fitted with artificial arms, he was made a consul to Canada in 1878. After Louisiana, he found his quiet life unnerving.

NARRATOR
Fan Butler married an Englishman. She tried to keep the plantations afloat, but eventually gave up and moved to Britain in 1877.

NARRATOR
John Roy Lynch managed to stay in politics for another twenty years and wrote an impassioned defense of Reconstruction. He died in Chicago in 1939.

NARRATOR
Tunis Campbell's enemies finally caught up with him. He was sent to a convict labor camp for a year, then fled Georgia. He died in Boston in 1891.

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