The Bloody Shirt

Terror after Appomattox

By: Stephen Budiansky

Narrated by: Phil Gigante

From 1866 to 1876, more than 3,000 free African Americans and their white allies were killed in cold blood by terrorist organizations in the South.

Over the years, this fact would not only be forgotten, but a series of exculpatory myths would arise to cover the tracks of this orchestrated campaign of atrocity and violence. Little memory would persist of the simple truth: that a well-organized and directed terrorist movement, led by ex-Confederates who refused to accept the verdict of Appomattox and the enfranchisement of the freedmen, succeeded in overthrowing the freely elected representative governments of every Southern state.

Stephen Budiansky brings to life this largely forgotten but epochal chapter of American history through the intertwining lives of five courageous men who tried to stop the violence and keep the dream of freedom and liberty alive. They include James Longstreet, the ablest general of the Confederate army, who would be vilified and ostracized for insisting that the South must accept the terms of the victor and the enfranchisement of black men; Lewis Merrill of the 7th Cavalry, who fought the Klan in South Carolina; and Prince Rivers, who escaped from slavery, fought for the Union, became a state representative and magistrate, and died performing the same menial labor he had as a slave.

Using letters and diaries left by these men, as well as startlingly hateful diatribes published in Southern newspapers after the war, Budiansky proves beyond a doubt that terrorism is hardly new to America.

©2008 Stephen Budiansky (P)2008 Brilliance Audio

Critic reviews

"Budiansky brings the unpleasant details of the era alive in a smoothly written narrative." ( Publishers Weekly)

The South Won. Don't Kid Yourself

Rarely have I been so supremely angry as I have been listening to this book.

Excellent.

Not boring but has some extraneous detail from the primary sources.

Brilliantly researched vignettes of terrible events and Ku Klux Klan terrorism in post-Civil War Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

The Mississippi Plan

Chapt. 29 - Read the text of The Mississipi Plan. It was probably influenced by the French Revolution, and affected so much of the future of world history, and yet it isn't discussed. There is a reason Woodrow Wilson, who was part of it in his teens, is mentioned in Mein Kampf. It's "Rules for Radicals" on steroids. That's just one reason this book is a valuable read. Another would be the untold success of State Gov's run by illiterate former slaves early on. But there is no more hateful arrogance than that of someone who has owned another human being, especially when they find they are thrust into equality with their former chattel. This book gives you scraps of a history almost erased from our books, and may yet disappear.

Violent Tactics

I wanted to know more specifically how the southern Democrats used fear, intimidation and terror to regain control of their state governments, and this book delivered in scintillatingly vivid fashion. I was delighted by the narrator's characterizations and reviled by the systematically despicable actions of the white supremacists.

ANYTHING but Dull!

I can only assume that the previous two reviews of this book were written by people still in denial over the southern reign of terror that followed the US Civil war. This book is a riveting account of that era in American history that has been washed from the brains of most Americans. The dramatic reading of the writings of actual participants only heightens the enjoyment.

If you have the guts to listen to Americans participating in ethnic cleansing of the blacks in the south, you will find this book facinating. And perhaps wonder why you never read about it in your high school history book!