Struggles in Post Civil War America

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The Civil War split the nation in half. It tore apart families, and Union soldiers against Confederate soldiers for four miserable years. From the first shots fired at Fort Sumter 1861, and ending with a unanimous Confederate victory in 1865. All in all 630,000 people died and many thousands wounded. The deaths in the Civil War totally surpassed the death totals from any other war (1). For those managed to survive the up hill battle just began, they faced many unknowns in a world moving in an uncertain direction. With the north beating the succeeded south in the war, politicians faced a hard task of reuniting the divided country. With reconstruction now in affect, both northern workers, and southern farmers now face many new obstacles and uncertainties about their jobs. The southern farmers had it bad, they lost the war, lost their slaves, and were forced to move west in order to find new farmland and continue to make a manageable living. However the north and south would find out that they would need each other in order to move the country forward. Most of the southern farmers moved west to find new job opportunities and fertile farmland however they were faced with many problems such as living conditions and bugs. When moving west, most farmers decided to settle in Kansas or Nebraska. The Homestead Act was instituted in 1862, if gave 160-arce farms to settlers to improve to land and live on it (3). If the farmers felt this was still to small of a land they were able to buy more land or borrow money to buy the land. The problem with that was that there was very little amount of trees to make houses so farmers resorted to making housed from sod (11). “The Sod wall is about 2 feet thick at the ground and slopes off on the outside... ... middle of paper ... ...trokes occurred. Some Pennsylvanian railroad workers worked shifts as long as 15 to 18 hours, and their pay had already been reduced by more then one-third. The railroad strikes coast over 10 million dollars worth of damages (5). In did not look good in the north either, where industry workers faced difficult problems after the Civil War. Post Civil War, the western farmers and the northern industrial workers did not get on with their lives easily. They both had to overcome many difficulties and battle up hill after just finishing up with the goriest war of all time. It took a while for both the western farmers and northern industry workers to settle into their new lives. However if it wasn’t for the strides made yesterday, this country would not be in the position it is in today. Yesterdays struggles help make the superpower known as the United States of America.

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