Twelve Years in Hell: Victorian Southerners Expose the Myth of Reconstruction, 1865-1877

In his sweeping work Twelve Years in Hell: Victorian Southerners Expose the Myth of Reconstruction, 1865-1877, Lochlainn Seabrook takes readers inside one of the most turbulent, controversial, and misunderstood periods in American history. Drawing heavily upon eyewitness testimony, he allows 125 men and women who actually lived through Reconstruction to tell their own stories-in their own words.

What did Victorian Southerners really think of Reconstruction? Did they regard Appomattox as the end of their struggle-or merely the beginning of another? How did they view military rule, Radical Republican policies, federal intervention, political corruption, and the dramatic remaking of Southern government and society? And why did some Southerners describe the twelve years from 1865 to 1877 as a "War of Reconstruction"?

Twelve Years in Hell explores these questions from a distinctly Southern historical perspective, bringing together voices and viewpoints seldom encountered in conventional accounts of the era. Seabrook also examines the political, constitutional, social, and economic controversies surrounding Reconstruction, its relationship to the Civil War, the rise of organized Southern resistance, and the long struggle to restore home rule.

FACTS ERASED FROM OUR HISTORY BOOKS . . .

- How Reconstruction fundamentally transformed the defeated Southern states.

- Why many Southerners regarded Reconstruction as a continuation of the Civil War.

- What Southern eyewitnesses reported about military government, political corruption, federal power, and social upheaval.

- How the "Invisible Empire" emerged amid organized resistance to Reconstruction.

- Why the constitutional and political battles of 1865-1877 remain controversial today.

- What the people who actually experienced Reconstruction had to say about it.

Divided into two major sections, this substantial volume also includes an in-depth introduction, hundreds of notes, an extensive index, an appendix, a comprehensive bibliography, and rare period photographs and illustrations.

Rather than simply retelling the familiar Reconstruction narrative, Twelve Years in Hell represents the voices of the Victorian South and invites readers to examine a side of this pivotal era they may never have encountered before.

About the Author: American polymath and Kentucky Colonel, Lochlainn Seabrook is a bestselling, award-winning historian and writer of more than 100 nonfiction books. His work explores history, archaeology, religion, science, folklore, and other subjects related to humanity's past.