Johnson's Amnesty Restores Confederate Land and Rights

President Johnson issued a sweeping amnesty proclamation on May 29, 1865, pardoning most Confederates and ordering restoration of their confiscated lands — including plantations seized by freedpeople under Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15. By year's end Johnson had personally pardoned former Confederate cabinet members, generals, and governors, reversing Black land gains and restoring the planter class to power.