THE primary purpose of this work is to give a detailed
study of reconstruction in Mississippi with reference to its
political, military, economic, educational, and legal phases.
A secondary purpose is to present a brief review of the
Civil War so far as it affected directly the state of Missis-
sippi or the people thereof, and, accordingly, special empha-
sis has been laid upon those results of the war that sustained
more or less relation to the problems of reconstruction.
Realizing the incompleteness of any history of reconstruc-
tion which concludes with the readmission of the state to
the Union and the reëstablishment of civil government, the
author has followed up the results of the congressional policy
as they appeared in the period of "carpet bag" and negro
domination, and has carried his narrative down to the final
overthrow of the party that had been the especial benefi-
ciaries of the congressional policy, -- an event locally known
as the "revolution of 1875."

The author is disposed to believe that a thorough study
of the actual working out of reconstruction in its different
relations and activities in any one of the Southern States will
be of some value to the general student of American history,
for, after all, the process and results in one state were essen-
tially the same in all. So far as he knows no attempt has
yet been made in this direction, and in undertaking to write
such a history of Mississippi he has been possessed of a good
many misgivings. More than one person to whom he ap-
plied for advice ventured the opinion that the smoke of
battle had not sufficiently cleared away and with it the
passions and animosities of the war to make it possible for
any American to discover and set forth the facts of recon-
struction without bias or prejudice. Although fully sen-

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