The book “Redemption; The Last Battle of The Civil War,” written by Nicholas Lemann focuses on one major politician during the reconstruction time period. Lemann illustrates the life of people in the south and the trials that the “Negros” faced. The conclusion of the civil war was supposed to be the end of racism and slavery, but white southerners continued to find ways to get around the new laws that were put into place. They created and passed “black codes” which, as the author says, “…legislated the freed slaves into a condition as close to their former one as it was possible to get without actually reinstituting slavery.”(34) The south was made up politicians that were democrats but who switched to republicans in order to obtain a vote. …show more content…
At this point of his life Ames was serving as brevet major general and was assigned to the Fourth Military District, which was formally the sates of Mississippi and Arkansas. (34) At the visitor’s gallery Ames met Blanche Butler, the daughter of Benjamin Franklin Butler the Republican Representative of Massachusetts and one of the impeachment managers. Ames and Blanche hit it off in February 1870 and he began courting her while fighting for a seat in the senate. In April he was seated and a couple of weeks later he proposed to Blanche and the wedding plans began. Blanche was very in the know about political matters and knew what she thought was right and wrong. During their engagement Adelbert decided that he might want to move to Mississippi and run for governor. Blanche was not thrilled with this idea, in fact, she despised everything about Mississippi, but she would not tell her soon to be husband that. She wrote letters to her mother in which the author describes them as, “… brave, but with horror always discernible in the background.” (56) Pleasing Blanche and his family was one of the biggest obstacles Ames faced while campaigning for and holding the office of Governor of Mississippi. He wanted to do everything he could to make Blanche happy and to see his children grow up safe but most of the time his family was in Massachusetts with her family while he was in Mississippi working hard for his second