Editing Forty acres and a mule (section)

{{short description|Attempt to redistribute land during the US Civil War}}
{{for|the film production company|40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks}}
{{Duplicated citations|reason=[[User:Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences|DuplicateReferences]] detected:<br>
* http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24170 (refs: 85, 238)
* https://doi.org/10.1162%2Frest_a_00842 (refs: 136, 263)
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[[File:General William T. Sherman (4190887790) (cropped).jpg|alt=A middle aged man in military dress|thumb|General William T. Sherman, who issued the orders that were the genesis of forty acres and a mule.]]
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2014}}
'''Forty acres and a mule''' refers to a key part of '''Special Field Orders, No. 15 (series 1865)''', a wartime order proclaimed by Union general [[William Tecumseh Sherman]] on January 16, 1865, during the [[American Civil War]], to allot land to some freed families, in plots of land no larger than {{convert|40|acre|ha}}.<ref>[http://www.freedmen.umd.edu/sfo15.htm Order by the Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi]</ref> Sherman later ordered the army to lend [[mule]]s for the agrarian reform effort. The field orders followed a series of conversations between Secretary of War [[Edwin Stanton|Edwin M. Stanton]] and [[Radical Republicans|Radical Republican]] abolitionists [[Charles Sumner]] and [[Thaddeus Stevens]]<ref name="Gates" /> following disruptions to the institution of [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] provoked by the [[American Civil War]]. They provided for the confiscation of {{convert|400000|acre|ha}} of land along the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] coast of [[South Carolina]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], and [[Florida]] and the dividing of it into parcels of not more than {{convert|40|acre|ha}},<ref name=Order>[http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moawar&cc=moawar&idno=waro0099&node=waro0099%3A2&view=image&seq=62&size=100 O.R. Series 1, Volume 47, Part 2,  60–62]</ref> on which were to be settled approximately 18,000 formerly enslaved families and other black people then living in the area.

Many freed people believed, after being told by various political figures, that they had a right to own the land they had been forced to work as slaves and were eager to control their own property. Freed people widely expected to legally claim 40 acres of land.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Reconstruction: America's unfinished revolution, 1863–1877|last=Foner|first=Eric|date=2014|publisher=Harper|isbn=978-0062035868|oclc=877900566|page=}}{{Page needed|date=February 2021}}</ref> However, [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s successor as [[President of the United States|president]], [[Andrew Johnson]], tried to reverse the intent of Sherman's wartime Order No. 15 and similar provisions included in the second [[Freedmen's Bureau bills]].

Some land redistribution occurred under military jurisdiction during the war and for a brief period thereafter. However, federal and state policy during the [[Reconstruction era]] emphasized wage labor, not land ownership, for black people. Almost all land allocated during the war was restored to its pre-war white owners.<ref>{{Cite web |last=fultonk |date=2013-01-06 |title=The Truth Behind '40 Acres and a Mule' {{!}} African American History Blog |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/ |access-date=2024-10-20 |website=The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross |language=en-US}}</ref> Several black communities did maintain control of their land, and some families obtained new land by [[Homestead Acts|homesteading]]. Black land ownership increased markedly in [[Mississippi]] during the 19th century, particularly. The state had much undeveloped [[bottomland]] (low-lying [[alluvial plain|alluvial]] land near a river) behind riverfront areas that had been cultivated before the war. Most black people acquired land through private transactions, with ownership peaking at {{convert|15|e6acre|e6ha|abbr=off}} or ~23,000 square miles in 1910, before an extended financial recession caused problems that resulted in the loss of property for many.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}