Aftermath & Reconstruction

Scalawags "White Southern Republicans"

Native white Southern politicians who joined the Republican party
after the war and advocated the acceptance of and compliance with
congressional Reconstruction were labeled scalawags. To most
white Southerners, scalawags were an unprincipled group of
traitorous opportunists who had deserted their countrymen and
ingratiated themselves with the hated Radical Republicans for their
own material gain. The devastation in the South after the war,
coupled with the economic and social problems, created a need for
progressive political action that the disenfranchised white
population could not address.

Many scalawags were sincere in their belief that conformance with

the dictated measures of the Reconstruction Acts was the best and
fastest way to end Reconstruction and return the South to home
rule. However, other scalawags, whose ranks included planters and
businessmen as well as poor whites, joined the most unscrupulous
of the Northern carpetbaggers in pillaging state treasuries and
being the political pawns of the Radical Republicans in Congress.
Scalawags who persisted in aiding the Northern Republicans after
the passage of the March 27, 1867, supplementary Reconstruction
Act, which instituted military rule in the Southern states to enforce
black suffrage and political equality, were especially detested and
would sometimes become the target of vigilantism by groups such
as the Ku Klux Klan.

Lee's "Warhorse", Gen. James Longstreet, and partisan ranger John

S. Mosby were probably the two most prominent ex-Confederates
to embrace the Republicans and earn the name scalawag. Col.
Franklin J. Moses, Jr., is an example of the worst of the scalawags.
He had been an ardent secessionist and had raised the Confederate
flag over Fort Sumter in 1861. After the war he joined the
Republicans, became governor of SOuth Carolina, and looted the
state treasury.

Fascinating Fact: The dictionary defines scalawag as "scamp,

reprobate, or an animal of little value because of its small size,
condition, or age". The term has been traced to Scalloway, a town
in the Shetland Islands known for its stunted cattle. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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